


And He's Oh So Good

by jemariel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Background Charlie Bradbury/Dorothy Gale, Cats, Charlie Bradbury & Dean Winchester Friendship, Closeted Dean Winchester, First Time, Gay Dean Winchester, Gay Panic, Hookup Cas/Balthazar, Hookup Cas/Crowley, Hookup Cas/Meg, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, LARPing, M/M, Masturbation, Non-explicit Cas/Others, Non-explicit M/F sex, Non-specific potential eating disorder, Pansexual Castiel (Supernatural), Promiscuous Castiel (Supernatural), Recreational Drug Use, Reference to homophobic violence (not against named characters), Self-Medication, Slow Burn, Top Castiel/Bottom Dean Winchester, Virgin Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:15:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 66,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26067085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jemariel/pseuds/jemariel
Summary: Dean Smith is a man of routine, and it's been working very well for him, thank you very much.Then Castiel walks into his life, and suddenly there's a splash of color that reveals just how gray everything had been before.Can Dean let himself step out of his comfortable shell and experience the good things in life that he's forgotten about?
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Castiel/Others - Relationship
Comments: 741
Kudos: 687
Collections: The Destiel Fan Survey Favs Collection, mp's favs





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Here we go, friends! The straight-laced Dean/stoner!Cas fic nobody asked for but dammit I wanted to write it anyway.
> 
> Big thanks as always to [elanor-n-evermind](https://elanor-n-evermind.tumblr.com/) for being my sounding board and beta reader for this beast. She's been listening to me hyperfixate on this for months so she deserves a round of applause. <3
> 
> Enjoy!

By all practical measurements, Dean Smith is a very successful man. He’s worked his ass off for the position he holds at Sandover Bridge & Iron: assistant sales manager, on track for sales manager and then maybe even regional sales director if he plays his cards right. You know, in… a decade or so.

He got lucky in the looks department, and he knows it. Great hair, kept sharp with fortnightly trips to the barbershop. Great body, which he rigorously maintains with a home workout schedule and strict dietary standards. Not that there’s anyone around to appreciate it; he hasn't been on a date in… but anyway, people trust an attractive, sharp-dressed man. He sometimes considers trying to write off his home gym equipment as a business expense. 

So when he opens the door to his suburban duplex (which the real estate agent had described as “charming” about five times in twenty minutes), he drops his keys in the bowl with a hollow clang, wanders into the kitchen—nothing in the fridge, but he knew that—why does it all feel so pointless?

The daylight outside is already starting to fade to blue twilight, which is better than getting home in the pitch black like he usually does. It's a sure sign of summer, that he sees any daylight at all that's not filtered through an office window. Still, the clock on the microwave informs him that it’s already past a reasonable dinnertime anyway, so maybe it’s okay that there’s nothing in the fridge. He can do a protein shake. That’ll be fine.

It usually is, anyway.

Sipping on a thick, malt-chocolate glop, Dean toes out of his wing-tips, slides his suspenders off his shoulders, and wanders up the stairs to change into workout clothes. He idly checks his phone without much hope, then does a double-take when he spies a voice-mail. From Charlie. 

With a genuine smile on his face, for once, he clicks the button and puts the phone on speaker as he changes clothes.

“What’s up, Deanaroonie!” Charlie’s recorded voice is a little fuzzy, but it makes sense, considering that it’s coming down the pipes from a cruise ship somewhere in the Carribean. “I finally find some signal, and you’re probably at work, you nerd. Okay! So, this is amazing?? We just left Kingston yesterday and we’re on our way to Port-au-Prince, and god, Dean, the girls! I mean, not that you care. But the guys, too—Everyone is just sunbathing and there’s cocktails like you wouldn’t believe and—okay, yeah, I’m rambling. And probb—abl—g—to lose sin—” the words stutter in and out, hidden behind static, and Dean strains to catch her words. It clears up for the end of the message “—be really good for you! So next year I am not taking no for an answer, you hear me? Okay. Love you, Deano, byyyyyyyyyyyye—!” _click._

Dean’s left alone in silence, fussing with the hem of his tank top. He closes his eyes and breathes deep. If he kids himself hard enough, he could almost smell the ocean and the sunshine pouring off her words. It sounds great. She’d tried to get him to come on this Big Gay Carribean Cruise Of Destiny (as she’d been calling it for months), but he’d begged off for a big project at work.

There was no big project. Not any bigger than usual, anyway.

He just couldn’t. He’s not ready for that.

He heads back downstairs with heavy steps, sighs at his free weights, enthusiasm dimmed. He needs some company. To that end, he turns on the TV—he tries the news but switches quickly to his favorite sitcom, the laugh track helping him bury the melancholy. Well, there is one thing he and that cruise line have in common: cocktails. He doesn’t need sunshine to fix himself a good martini.

~~

The tulips outside are all white. The curtains are pristine, robin’s-egg blue. The grass is so green it doesn’t look real, and it’s trimmed so that every blade is within a millimeter of its neighbor’s length.

Castiel stands on hardwood floors that have probably actually been waxed in recent memory and tries not to scuff his heels. He feels like he’s going to contaminate the place just by existing in it, in all his ratty-jean glory and a tie-dye tank top he’d traded two joints for at Bumbershoot.

“I can’t believe you live here,” he says to his sister.

“What’s wrong with it?” Anna asks, looking around, genuinely perplexed.

“Nothing. That’s the problem.”

Anna gives him a long-suffering huff and a quick shake of her head as she pushes past him to tuck something else into her suitcase. “The cleaning service comes on Tuesdays,” she says, “and the gardener on Wednesdays. They’ll take care of everything; don’t worry. Did you park your van around the corner?”

“Yes, Anna,” Castiel sighs. “I parked the eyesore a suitable distance away from your Pleasantville neighbors. It won’t offend their delicate noses.”

“Don’t be sour,” Anna says, but she has the good grace to actually look chastened, then bends to pick up a smokey-gray ball of fluff with a bottlebrush tail and enormous blue eyes. “All you have to do is take care of my babies,” she says, smooshing kisses into the side of the cat’s face. The cat looks unimpressed but accustomed to this behavior. “That means brushing once a day for this one. The others will mostly take care of themselves, but she gets mats. And I’ve left notes about how to feed them on the counter. _Please_ , Castiel,” Anna lets the grumpy fluffball jump to the floor. “Please follow the feeding instructions.” She looks deadly serious.

“Don’t worry,” Castiel says, trying for his best reassuring smile. Anna doesn’t look convinced but lets it slide.

“Ellie is the complicated one,” she says. “You’ll probably barely see Rosco except at mealtimes. Thomas will demand attention once he gets comfortable. Won’t you, TomTom,” she coos at a slender black-and-white adolescent cat perched on the back of the sofa. He responds with a chattery little meow.

While Anna makes embarrassing noises at the cat, Castiel looks over their meal plan. Under each cat’s name—underlined—there’s an extensive schedule of feeding, who gets wet food and who gets dry at what time of day, which bowl is which and where… It’s dizzying.

“Whatever happened to cats being the low-maintenance option?” Castiel mutters. Jesus, there’s a second page to this madness.

If Anna was planning to reply, she doesn’t get the chance before there is a polite knock at the door.

Anna’s heels click on the way down the hall to the front door. Castiel toes out of his sandals and wanders through the open-plan kitchen, around the island, stepping onto the soft carpet of the living room. Thomas the cat blinks at him, curious, unafraid. Castiel reaches out a hand, letting him sniff his fingertips; he does, then turns away and bounces off the sofa seat toward parts unknown. Figures.

“Hi!” Anna’s voice echoes from down the hall. “Oh, right, you wanted your baking pan back, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, if you’re done with it,” comes a low voice, one that has Castiel’s ear pricking to attention. It’s a nice voice. Very nice.

The man who follows Anna into the kitchen is—there’s no better word for him—absolutely gorgeous, and absolutely fits Castiel’s imaginary profile of people who would live in this neighborhood. Cas shamelessly lets his gaze rake over him while they chatter in the kitchen: chiseled jaw, perfectly combed hair, broad chest and shoulders ready to burst out of a crisp button-down, framed by honest-to-god _suspenders_. Castiel wants to rub up against all those sharp edges, wreck those clean lines. He’s the kind of perfect you just want to ruin with your hands and teeth, like a new fall of snow in the morning. 

Oh, good lord, Castiel is going to hell.

Castiel finally makes his way back up to the man’s eyes—sparkly, hazel green, and locked on Castiel like the proverbial deer in the light of Castiel’s oncoming train. It’s very likely he has no idea what to make of him, all rough-and-tumble and probably still smelling like road funk and weed. But then—oh, then his gaze flicks over Castiel's exposed shoulders and the low sling of his jeans over his hip bones. It’s possible he’s just scandalized, but when combined with the way his ears and neck turn delightfully pink, Castiel doesn’t think so.

Castiel licks his lips. The man looks, then does likewise, blinking too fast.

And he thought this summer in suburbia was going to be boring. This poor man is either going to end up punching Castiel or bending over for him, and he cannot wait to find out which. 

“Castiel, this is my neighbor, Dean Smith. He’s in the other half of the duplex,” Anna says into the sudden thick silence in the room. “Dean, this is my brother, Castiel. He’ll be cat-sitting while I'm gone.”

Castiel barely hears her, and based on the way Dean has to shake himself and visibly catch up on the conversation, he didn’t either. “Right,” he says. “Great. Yes. I mean—yeah, great. Great to meet you. Good. I mean—”

Castiel feels like cackling but manages to tame it down to a grin. 

“Don’t hurt yourself,” he says, stepping forward with a hand outstretched. Dean's hand is impeccably soft and just a little bit clammy. “If you need anything,” he says, pitching his voice low and letting the words hang for a breath too long. “Please don’t hesitate to drop by.”

Dean looks like he's about to shit his pants, eyes so wide, Castiel can see all of the green. He kind of feels bad for the poor man, but it’s just too much fun.

“Uh. Yeah. Sure. I—I will. Mmhm.”

“Oh, for the love of—” Anna’s voice breaks the spell. “Calm down, Castiel.”

With a grin and a wink, Castiel finally lets go of Dean’s hand; Anna’s there to fill it with the baking dish. “See you around, Mr. Smith,” Castiel says.

“Yeah. Yes. Um.” Dean swallows, gripping the baking dish like a lifeline while Anna herds him out of the kitchen. “See you around, Cas-Cas-teal—”

“You can call me Cas,” Castiel says, lifting one hand to wave goodbye.

~~

Dean’s not nervous. He has no reason to be nervous. It’s a regular day, coming home from work, looking forward to the same old normal evening he always has—salad or a protein shake, Tuesday workout while he watches some crap on TV, gin martini, maybe another voicemail from Charlie if he’s lucky—there’s no reason to be nervous.

He tries to tell that to his fingers, but they keep drumming on the wheel of his Prius. He tries to tell it to the dryness of his throat, but his bottle of water is long since dead and he’s still parched.

Just as he’d feared (or hoped—it’s a thin line), Cas is sitting on the shared front porch of his and Anna’s duplex. He’s shirtless under a flowy silk robe and linen shorts that show way too much of—everything, really. Thighs, stomach, bare bony feet, clavicle, nipples—oh god, nipples. Dean needs to get a grip. To make matters worse, Cas is smoking something that definitely doesn’t look or smell like a cigarette.

And he’s watching Dean. Eyes like blue ice trained on him while Dean tries to amble casually up his own walk and almost trips on a crack that’s been there since he moved in. When he looks up from where he’s stepping, Cas is grinning at him, wide and gummy and blissed out, before blowing out a lungful of smoke. “Hey there,” he says, voice too rough for sultry but shivering on Dean’s spine nonetheless. “Welcome home.”

Dean bristles. “You trying to get yourself arrested?”

“What for? The joint? Or the public indecency?”

“Either,” Dean says. “Both.”

Cas shrugs, a languid movement of one shoulder shifting under silk. “Either way, sounds like I end up in handcuffs, which is usually a recipe for a great Friday night.”

“It’s Tuesday.”

“Is it? Shame.” Cas stubs out his joint in one of Anna’s teacups, then stands, stretches, scratches his bird’s nest of wild hair. Dean’s feet have melted to the concrete walk, he’s certain. “You’re welcome to join me, if you like.”

Dean manages to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “For what?”

With a significant lift of his eyebrows, Cas says, “Whatever you like.” Then he ambles inside, silk swinging behind his calves, and Dean feels like he can breathe again.

He also feels like he’s been standing in the sun on his walkway for far too long. He shifts his briefcase in his sweaty fingers and, already reaching to loosen his tie, Dean escapes into the cool of his house.

~~

And just like that, it becomes part of his nightly routine, getting an eyeful of Cas lounging at Anna’s tasteful painted-iron porch table. Their banter never goes very far, but it always leaves Dean with a tingle under his skin, palms sweaty. He starts to expect him there, feels his heart picking up the tempo several blocks before he turns up his street. It even gets him to leave work earlier—closer to the time a sane person would leave, at least—just because he's eager for those few seconds of contact.

Kind of pathetic? Yeah, probably. But he's used to that. 

~~

“Hello, Dean.”

“Do you just sit out here all day smoking weed in your underwear?”

“Don't be ridiculous. I'm also wearing a robe.”

“Ha ha.”

~~

Dean never lingers, and Cas never tries very hard to continue the conversation. At first, Dean is grateful because there's only so much his blood pressure can take. But after several days of this, there's an invitation hovering on Dean's tongue, considering asking if he wants to come inside and… 

And do what? That's where he always gets hung up. It's not like he has anything to offer: nothing in the fridge but protein powder and kale, nowhere to sit in his living room, unless you count the weight bench. There's the couch in his basement, but going down there feels like some kind of a commitment.

So he accepts his snippet of conversation and goes inside alone, finds something to pass for dinner, works out, and goes to bed to start the cycle all over again. He gets another voicemail from Charlie, this one even shorter than the last, and that's the bright spot in his week other than his brief conversations on the porch. Increasingly, Castiel occupies all the empty spaces of Dean’s thoughts.

~~

“Hey, Cas. Why the long face?” 

“Hm? Oh. It's nothing. How was work?”

“You can't actually be interested in construction materials sales.”

“Not in the slightest. But I am interested in you.”

“... Right.” 

~~

It’s ridiculous, he thinks while pounding the track on his fold-away treadmill. He barely knows the guy, and what he does know about him should grate on him. What exactly is he fixating on? 

The lowest part of his brain has no shortage of reasons to be fixated on Castiel. He eventually has to cut short his cardio and go take a chilling shower. 

It's nothing new, being a complete idiot around attractive men. Dean has absolutely no idea how to handle it. It pushes up all kinds of things he doesn't like to admit about himself, pushes him into unknown territory at light speed—where no man has gone before. Heh. Literally. 

Pathetic.

He’s usually a little better at keeping the lid on it—if there's one thing he’s good at in this department, it's keeping a lid on it—but there's something about the way this Castiel character looks at him that just digs right under Dean's skin. Turns him all hot and prickly and tongue-tied. It’s like he _knows._ It’s exhilarating. Or terrifying. Or both.

He’s just so incongruous, Dean thinks as he slides between his cold sheets. He stands out in this neighborhood, in Dean’s life, like a sunflower amongst the ragweed. Everything about him is just so wrong, and yet so right, and— 

In the silence of Dean’s bedroom, a low sound echoes through the wall. Dean’s eyes pop open, and he waits for it to happen again. A few seconds pass, and it does, and yeah, that’s Castiel’s laugh. Has to be. Rich baritone laughter, muffled but distinct, from the mirror image of his own bedroom on the other side of the wall. 

Then another, a giggle, low but definitely feminine. Cas has someone over. Cas has someone in his bedroom. Dean freezes.

And then another sound, only that’s not just a laugh.

That’s a moan.

Dean doesn’t dare to breathe. Cranes his neck to stare at the wall behind the head of his bed. He and Anna both know that the walls between their living spaces are thinner than they'd like, but that mostly just means that Anna knows about his addiction to home improvement shows. It would seem, however, with Cas on the other side, that’s going to have some very different implications.

_Son of a bitch._

He thinks about rolling over, taco-ing his pillow around his head, and ignoring it.

He thinks about banging his fist on the wall and hoping they knock it off or go somewhere else.

What he does instead is lay perfectly still, barely even breathing until he has to, hungry for every gasp and groan and murmured word. The fingers of one hand hover near the drawstring of his pajama bottoms, his heart hammering faster than it ever does on the treadmill.

He hears the woman, whoever she is, more than he hears Cas himself. Her throaty groans and whimpers of encouragement paint a picture of enthusiastic touches, and it’s all too easy to picture Cas’s large, well-formed hands skimming over skin. It thrums through Dean’s body; he feels electrocuted, paralyzed.

The sounds turn rhythmic, repetative, a bedframe bumping against his own damn wall, and oh, fuck, they’re fucking in earnest now. Dean’s eyes slam shut as he gives in, hand diving under his clothes to wrap around his straining cock, and it’s like a live wire connecting. He can hear Cas’s voice between the knocking thrusts. Can’t actually hear what he’s saying, but the cadance and vague shape of it is enough to spur the imagination. He pictures it, spreads his legs on his own bed and pictures Cas over and inside him, murmuring all the terrible things he wants to do to him, things he’s never known before but imagined desperately a thousand times over, now with a name, a face, a voice.

His orgasm presses up tight under his skin as the knocking from the wall rises to a crescendo. He screws his eyes tight, toes curling, stripping himself raw— 

Fuck—

The woman screams, broken up by grunts and curses as Cas—fuck—Cas must be finishing too, by the helpless panting and gasping, the slow punctuative grunts—coming inside her— 

Dean bursts. He comes hard, blinding, hot and wet and all over himself, muffling his noises in the palm of his other hand.

Shame is a swift and sour aftertaste at the end of the pleasure; he keeps his eyes shut against it. 

Okay, he’s officially a creep. Apparently, it’s not enough to perv on this guy in person, now he has to take advantage of his private affairs? Dean really is pathetic.

At least Cas is just a temporary fixture. One he’s not even obligated to interact with and who’ll be gone in a couple of months. So. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Right?

That rationale should hold for all of ten minutes. Long enough to fall asleep, hopefully.

On the plus side, he knows something, now, Dean thinks as he reaches for tissues for his hand and belly and tries very hard not to listen to the silence in the other room. Whatever his deal is, Cas probably isn’t actually interested in him. No matter what signals Dean might think he’s been picking up on. He never did have the chance to develop any gaydar, anyway, so. Yeah. Figures he’d lust after a straight guy.

Honestly, it's a relief. It means Dean can actually just interact with him like a normal person. A normal person he has a ridiculous—literal—hard on for, but that’s nothing new. He doesn’t have to worry about it going anywhere or dealing with the ramifications of that, because Cas just doesn’t swing that way.

He keeps telling himself he’s relieved all the way into slumber.

~~

“You think he heard?”

“I sure hope so. You’re an excellent screamer.”

Meg hums, stretching, nude and dewy. Cas lets his eyes linger on her round, perky breasts and the softness of her belly and thighs. Even though his mind had been firmly on muscular shoulders and green-apple eyes while they’d fucked, he can still appreciate her beauty. 

“Well,” she says, already rolling out of the bed and searching for her underthings. “I hope your gambit pays off, Clarence. He sounds like a real dish.”

Cas tries to determine if that’s sarcasm, then decides it doesn’t matter. “You sure you don’t want to stay?” The words are out before he can think twice, and Meg responds with a honk of laughter from inside her tank top.

“Wait, are you serious?” she asks as her head pops through the neck.

Cas lets his gaze fall away and resettles himself on the bed. It really is very nice to have such a large bed to spread out in. He’s beyond unaccustomed to it, but he could get spoiled like this. “No,” he says. “Just that I got my hands on some actual-wormwood absinthe, and it would be a shame to drink it alone.”

“Aww,” Meg coos, tugging her jeans into place. She’s already digging her phone out of her jacket pocket when she says, “That’s sweet, but I gotta run. This has been fun, though. Real treat. I’ll see myself out.”

“Yeah.” And then Meg is gone. Castiel stares up at the ceiling for a while in the soft, purpley light of his borrowed bedroom. The silence stretches long around him before he reaches for the bottle. At least the green fairy is reliable company.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I am not a plumber 
> 
> Big thanks to [Pallas Perilous](https://pallasperilous.tumblr.com) and [elanor-n-evermind](https://elanor-n-evermind.tumblr.com) for the beta-read!

In spite of wearing himself out on the treadmill the night before, Dean wakes with the sun, full of nervous energy. So he dons some running shorts, sneakers, and headphones, and takes to the cool, quiet streets of his neighborhood before most anyone is awake to bother. It’s a chilly morning, but he warms up quickly, and by the time the sun rises high enough to start heating the air in earnest, Dean’s pounding back up his front stairs with sweat dripping off his brow into his eyes.

Panting, dabbing his face with the hem of his tank top, Dean makes a beeline for the cool water from the fridge door.

It’s only after he’s drained one glass and is reaching to fill another that he hears a distinctive grinding thump. And again. And then several times in quick succession.

He knows that grind: it’s Anna’s garbage disposal. It’s been clogging for months, but she cooks so rarely, she hasn’t bothered to get it properly fixed. 

Dean hesitates. He’s done this a hundred times. It shouldn’t be a big deal.

But he knows Anna. She’s the closest thing he has to a friend aside from Charlie, which… okay, they aren’t that close and it’s kind of sad, but still. He knows her. He doesn’t really know Cas.

The grinding comes again, and then a muffled thump. Dean’s moving toward the door before the communication between his feet and his brain can quite make it all the way through.

A gentle knock doesn’t get an answer. He tries the knob and the door clicks open. 

In for a penny, he thinks, and cautiously enters.

He finds Cas in the kitchen, wearing only floppy boxers and a T-shirt, an old tour shirt for some band, swearing under his breath as he digs into the garbage disposal with the handle of a wooden spoon. Two of the cats—Thomas and Ellie, he thinks—are observing the proceedings with what might be genuine amusement. Dean’s not sure if he’s getting used to Cas, or if the knowledge that he’s straight is acting as a buffer, or what; in any case, all he feels is a warm rush in his veins at the sight of him. He lets himself look a little. Okay, more than a little. And… that’s enough looking.

“Hey.” 

Castiel jumps a mile out of his skin and nearly knocks one of the cat dishes off the counter. Thomas startles and goes streaking off for parts unknown; Ellie just closes her eyes in disdain. “Dean!” Cas squawks. “What are you doing here?”

“I heard the disposal.” Dean says. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to barge in. Anna usually asks me to fix it when it gets like this. Is this a bad time?” He's on alert for the potential appearance of Cas's lady friend at any moment, trying to be prepared. 

“I—no.” Cas does not seem fully awake or aware yet. He just stares at Dean, slack-jawed and sloe-eyed. “No, it’s fine.” He opens his mouth like he has something else to say, but ultimately just swipes a hand over his face and turns to the coffee maker. “I am not awake enough for this. You want some coffee?”

“Uh, no, thank you. I’ll just fix the sink and then leave you to your, uh—leave you to it.”

Cas waves in the general direction of the sink, which Dean takes to mean ‘get on with it,’ so he shimmies down under the cupboard.

“So,” Castiel asks while Dean works and the coffee pot burbles. “What do you have planned for today, Mr. Smith?”

“Oh. Not a lot,” Dean says. “I usually go into the office for a few hours, at least.”

“But it’s Saturday.”

“Yeah,” Dean says as the pipe comes loose. “Meaning, I can get some actual work done without hordes of people bothering me all the time.”

“But.” He sounds aghast. “But it’s _Saturday._ ”

Bits of lime peel fall on Dean’s forehead. They’re soggy and slimy and Dean doesn’t really want to know. “Yeah, well, we can’t all live _la vie bohème_ ,” he grumbles as he peels them away.

Cas doesn’t respond to that. Once Dean has evacuated the clog and reconnected the pipe, he crawls out from under the sink to see Cas slouching against the counter, his head bent low over a cup of black coffee. He may have actually fallen asleep over it.

“There,” he says, and Cas opens his eyes, though the frown remains. Dean runs the water and flips the switch. The disposal gurgles happily. “Good as new.”

“Thank you,” Cas says, voice as dark as the coffee he’s clinging to.

“Shouldn’t bother you again. At least, not if you and your girlfriend stop shoving lime peels down there. It might be called a garbage disposal, but—what’s so funny?”

Cas is laughing. A nearly soundless, shoulder-shaking laugh that forces him to put his coffee down on the counter. He just shakes his head for a second before he gets enough breath to answer. “Meg is not my girlfriend.”

“Oh. So you’re just, uh… close friends?” _Shut up, Dean, shut up, you don’t want to know..._

Cas shrugs into his coffee with an expression so innocent, it could turn the milk to cream. “Something like that,” he says.

“Uh-huh.” Dean turns to wash his hands, back stiff. The silence between them lingers, stretches taut.

When Cas does speak again, it’s crisp and business-like, which is a strange tone, coming from him. “Well. This has been fun. Thank you, Mr. Smith, for your swift and criticism-free services.”

“What?”

“I don’t need your judgement, Dean.”

Dean fumbles the Dial soap dispenser into the sink. “I’m not—”

“Yes, you very clearly are.” Castiel sets his coffee down on the counter and presses into Dean’s space, chin first. “You can live your life however you want, Dean, but don’t pretend you know anything about how I live mine. You should show me some respect.”

Several sensations fire off in Dean’s body all at once, shock and shame and arousal and the thump of the kitchen counter as Cas backs him into it. “Hey, look, uh—sorry,” he says, pressing his ass and his palms into the marble trying to calm his pulse. “You’re right, that was presumptuous of me.”

Castiel squints at him, all holy fire, and doesn’t give a single inch. Dean’s every breath is full of his raw, earthen scent. It should be offensive, but by god if Dean doesn't keep taking in tiny little sips.

“I know how you can make it up to me,” Cas says.

Dean just gulps, his brain and blood taking an express train south.

Then Cas says: “Don’t go to work today.”

It takes a couple of seconds, but the train heads back north, fueling confusion. “Wait, what?”

“Or tomorrow.”

“Look, buddy, I—”

“You are going to have a normal weekend if it kills you, Mr. Smith. Even if I have to tie you to a dining room chair to keep you from going anywhere near your fancy suits.”

And south again, wow, okay. Dean feels dizzy. And he’s increasingly aware that his running shorts do not leave much to the imagination. Thankfully, Cas finally steps back to retrieve his coffee, and Dean manages to take a real breath.

While Cas messes with the coffee, Dean considers the pine wood of the kitchen cupboards. The quarterly reports are all turned in. The next audit isn’t until September. He’s all caught up on his ordering and validation requests. Honestly, the only reason he’d be going in would be force of habit. And for lack of anything better to do.

When he looks back at Cas, he sees him holding out a fresh, full mug. It’s got a smiling cartoon bee on it, surrounded by the words “ _Don’t worry—Bee happy._ ”

And there are Cas’s baby blues peering over it, one challenging eyebrow lifted.

Dean shrugs and accepts the offering. “What’d you have in mind?”

~~

As it turns out, Dean doesn’t own pants that aren’t slacks. But he does own a swimsuit, so that’s fine. The pants won’t last long, anyway, if Castiel has anything to say about it.

“You sure this is the right way?” Dean asks for the fifth time as he steers his Prius up the winding road. “I think we’re going away from the river, not toward it.”

“Oh ye of little faith,” says Castiel. 

The road twists and winds up the wooded hill, then drops down into a shady gully with an elbow of the river nestled at the bottom. They are clearly not the only ones with this idea. The shoulder is packed with cars where the road bends closest to the river; Cas spies a group of teenagers and a family with two small children, but he’s not concerned.

“Is it always this busy?” Dean asks as he searches for a place to park.

“Absolutely. This is what normal people do on Saturday.”

Dean just grits his teeth. His skepticism radiates like a beacon, but he keeps it to himself. Cas should probably feel bad about his little display back in the kitchen, but he’s had enough of hoity-toity dirtbags making assumptions about him to last a lifetime. It’s like itching powder that doesn’t wash off, just builds up until every new application makes him want to tear at his skin. Not that he really thinks Dean is a dirtbag. Dirtbag-adjacent, maybe. A holder of dirtbag opinions. Jury’s still out.

For the moment, Dean seems to have gotten the message, and that’s good enough for Castiel. Rome wasn’t built in a day. 

As soon as Dean squeezes his car into a gap between an SUV and a decrepit little hatchback, Cas is out the door, grabbing a small cooler and a tote bag full of towels from the backseat.

“Should I leave my clothes here, or…?” Dean asks.

Castiel shrugs. “They’re your fancy pants.”

So Dean nods, looks around a little self-consciously, then starts unbuttoning his shirt. Cas’s eyes are instantly glued to his fingers, and he ambles around the car as casually as he can manage for a better view.

Dean’s chest is paler than his face, but the flush on his neck stains all the way down past his collarbone, and that’s just delightful. He’s defined without being bulky, trim at the waist, and a girdle of Adonis that has Cas’s mouth watering already.

This wasn’t actually his motive when he dragged Dean out here, but he’s an opportunistic ogler.

Then Dean drops his slacks.

And Castiel bursts into laughter.

“What?” Dean asks, accusatory. “I swim laps in pools. What’s so funny?”

It’s an honest-to-god _Speedo_ , simple black with a sportsy logo on one delicious hip. Castiel eventually controls himself, and figures that laughter is probably better than trying to figure out whether or not Dean’s circumcised through the clinging fabric.

“Nothing,” Cas says, betrayed by another burble of giggles. “Nothing at all.”

Dean just glares at him as he tosses his clothing into the car. Dean had dug up a pair of flip-flops with the tag still on, so at least he’s not trekking down there in wing-tips, but one hand does hover protectively over the family jewels. “Lead the way, chuckles.”

Before he does, Cas takes a bit of mercy on Dean and tosses him one of the enormous beach towels he’d stolen from Anna’s linen cupboard. “Here,” he says. “For your delicate modesty.”

“Buzz off,” Dean says, but he wraps the towel around his waist anyway and hangs on tight where it joins. The bright coral-pink flowers go excellently with his complexion.

Eventually, they make it down to the little riverside beach. The early summer air is sultry, fragrant with water, mud, and green growing things. The warmth of the day is leavened by a breeze that shivers in the alders and vine maples that line the riverbanks. Cas drops his supplies on a bare patch of sand near the trees, then breathes in deep while Dean is still tripping over the tree roots down the path. To Cas’s left, downstream, clusters of families, couples, and groups of friends gather under umbrellas and around coolers. An impromptu game of volleyball seems to have sprung up in the shallows where the river bends, even without a net. To the right, the beach is rockier, growing from pebbles to boulders and culminating in a tallish rocky promontory. More than a few teenagers are taking turns leaping off into the pool below, floating back to shore and then charging back up the rocks to do it again.

“We’re going to catch giardia out here,” Dean grumbles as he approaches, stormy face at odds with the clement weather.

“You trust public pools more than you trust this?” Cas asks, gesturing expansively.

“Hey, at least the pool is chlorinated.”

Cas gives him a full-body eyeroll and starts to wander out toward the water.

“Uh, Cas?”

Cas turns.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

Dean holds up a little orange tube that says “SPF 50.”

And Castiel _grins._ First the strip tease, then the Speedo, and now he gets hands all over him? This day is the gift that keeps on giving. “Silly me,” he says, then turns around and steps backwards, aiming just a little closer to Dean than necessary. “I’m all yours.”

But instead of warm hands spreading cool, oily, banana-scented lotion all over him, he gets a shock of cold spray. “Ack, what the hell?”

When he turns, Deann is holding up the tube, and now that he’s closer, he can see that it’s not a squeeze tube, but a miniature aerosol can. “Come on. Close your eyes and I’ll do your face. Then you can spray my back.”

Grumbling internally, Cas does as he’s told. The spray feels prickly on his skin. “Thanks, I guess,” he mutters.

“You’ll thank me for real when you don’t get skin cancer.”

“Whatever,” Cas says, and then, “Race you to the water.”

~~

“This is very high.”

“It’s really not.”

“It’s high enough. Are you sure this water’s deep enough?”

“You don’t have to jump.”

“You’re going to, right?”

“Most definitely.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Just do it, asshole.”

Cas’s swan-dive is a thing of beauty, the emerald water parting like a clamshell to receive his toned body. Dean holds his breath behind chattering teeth for a few seconds until Cas surfaces a few yards away with a beatific look on his face. He’s already relaxing into a backstroke, like he was born in the water. 

Okay. It’s fine. Dean's just being a baby. His nerves may be one big old jumble as he steps up to the edge of the rock, but he can do this. 

His straight-legged drop is a lot less graceful, but it gets him in the water without breaking anything. After a few moments of blind terror, instincts kick in and he propels himself to the surface with water streaming out of his hair into his eyes, his nose. Once he’s sure he’s breathing air again, the adrenaline slings from terror into pure exhilaration.

“I did it!” he whoops, slapping the water. He can see Cas’s head bobbing a few yards away; he’s laughing. Or grinning, at least. “Cas, I did it!” 

Cas disappears under the water, then comes up again close enough that their knees bump from treading water. Dean’s still riding high on the thrill of his own daring; he can’t tell if that’s why his skin goes all tingly, or if it’s just Cas.

“Congratulations,” Cas says, almost too low to be heard over the thump of the water.

“Shut up, let me be proud of myself for a minute.”

“I was being serious.”

“Uh-huh,” Dean says, then pushes himself away with a splash that sluices right into Castiel’s face. He squeaks—for the love of all, Castiel _squeaks._

“How dare you,” Cas growls, and gears up to launch himself at Dean. Dean tries to scramble away, but Cas is the stronger swimmer, and after a few moments of splashing and way too much skin contact for Dean’s hair-trigger libido, Dean cries uncle.

“You are such a dork,” Cas says with one last tiny splash as they start the easy swim back to shore.

“You’re one to talk,” Dean pants.

“Dean,” Cas says.

“What?”

Cas is pointing at something floating near the rocks. Something small, black, and diaphanous. “Is that your speedo?”

~~

Dean’s body feels heavy after being buoyant for so long, but his heart hasn’t felt so light in… years, probably. He flops down on his pink-flowered towel and doesn’t even try to wipe the grin off his face.

Cas settles down his own polka-dot towel with a few inches of pebbly sand between them. “I’m not one to say I told you so,” he says. “But in this case, I feel I would be justified.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean sighs, content to close his eyes and enjoy the cool of the shade, the breeze drying the water on his body, the rustle of the alder trees overhead. He could fall asleep right here, he thinks. Just nap the rest of the afternoon away with Cas at his side.

Dangerous thoughts.

“Here.”

Something cool pokes Dean in the hip. He opens his eyes—wow, colors, was the sky always that blue?—to find Cas nudging him with a bottle of water.

“Thanks,” he says, then pops the cap and drains two thirds of it in one go.

“There’s more where that came from,” Cas says, digging in his cooler and pulling out a large plastic container. The smell of fried meat and spicy sauce makes it to Dean’s nose before he even opens the clamshell lid.

“Oh, I can't,” Dean says, automatic, though his stomach rumbles.

Cas pops the clamshell, and the aroma gets stronger. Dean swallows hard and closes his eyes again.

“You sure? You burned a lotta calories flapping around out there.”

Dean clenches his fingers and hesitates just a second too long before saying, “I’m on a diet.” 

“Suit yourself,” Cas says, shrugging one bare shoulder and going in for another wing. 

Dean can’t remember the last time he had fried food. Maybe before he started at Sandover. But buffalo wings used to be his favorite. Just the smell brings back memories of late-night tipsy wanderings through his college town with Charlie and their little circle of nerds. They hadn’t been old enough to drink legally, so it had been questionably acquired wine or cans of beer and cheap food from the local Gas-N-Sip. Usually buffalo wings, probably identical to the ones Cas now holds in his hands.

There's no way Cas could have known all that. It's a coincidence that he brought this particular brand of terrible food, but it hits Dean in the stomach all the same. In more ways than one, because he is actually ravenous. His single egg white on half-sized whole wheat toast feels like a very long time ago. 

Castiel chews in silence. He doesn’t push, he doesn’t offer again. He just enjoys his wings, sucking the sauce from his fingers until Dean breaks. “Give me that.”

With a smirk, Castiel blithely passes over the shell. Inside are more than a dozen boneless wings, deep fried in a thick, peppery batter and slathered in buffalo sauce. Just one, Dean promises himself. 

And by God, he could swear he can actually feel the dopamine flooding his system as he takes that first bite. The flavor is exactly as he remembered, all savory spices and fried goodness, and the noise he makes is surely obscene. He can’t bring himself to care. They are definitely the ones from Gas-N-Sip, which means they are absolutely not _good_ wings, but the nostalgia factor more than makes up for it. He shoves the whole wing in his mouth and reaches for two more before forcing himself to hand the clamshell back to Cas.

“Have as many as you like,” Cas says.

Dean’s too busy savoring the rush to answer.


	3. Chapter 3

“Are you decent yet?”

“This ain't exactly a walk in the park, you know. Just stay out there. And no peeking.”

Cas’s vague shadow shifts on the other side of the beach towel draped over the Prius’s window. “What’s there left to see that I haven’t seen, anyway? I hate to break it to you, but your banana hammock did not keep many secrets, Mr. Smith. Unless you’ve got an ass tattoo. Wait, do you have an ass tattoo?”

With a final grunt, Dean completes the tricky maneuver of trying to pull his underwear up over sandy, not-quite-dry legs in the cramped back seat of his car. “No, I do not, just—keep your shirt on.”

“I don’t—” Cas is cut off by a cell phone ring straight out of 1998. “Hold on.” Dean hears his sandals crunch on the roadside gravel as he steps away to answer.

Dean finishes changing in peace, then gets tangled in the towel as he opens the door to climb out of the back seat. Truly, today has been his most dignified hour. He sags against the side of the car, worn out in a way he rarely feels, even after arms and chest day with the free weights. His skin feels hot and suffocated now that he's re-dressed in his slacks and button-down, even untucked and rolled up at the cuffs. Absentmindedly, he undoes a button or two of his collar. At any rate, he's more presentable than Cas, who’s still in his board shorts and expressed no intention to change. At least he put his T-shirt back on. Save Dean a single shred of his sanity.

A few car-lengths down the road, Cas has a dinosaur of a flip phone pressed to one ear and his finger stuck in the other. In profile, Dean can see a furrow in his brow and pinches in his cheeks. He looks intense—not really upset, but not happy either. Dean watches him without really seeing him for a long moment while he speaks in short, clipped sentences, then longer, quieter ones that don’t make it to Dean’s ears.

Finally, Cas meanders back, closing the phone but keeping it in his hand. His attention still seems to be elsewhere.

“Everything okay?” Dean asks.

Cas chews his lip a moment, staring at the pavement and turning the phone over and over in his hand. “I need to—dammit.”

“What?”

Cas sighs and closes his eyes, resigned. “There’s something I need to take care of. It’s time-sensitive, and I need transportation. Do you mind?”

Dean hedges. He’s sore and tired and a weird kind of sticky under his clothes, and he still doesn’t actually know this guy. “What kind of thing?”

“It’s a work thing.”

Dean's skepticism spikes. “Really? You?”

Castiel’s face shutters. He squares his jaw and his shoulders, and Dean realizes that they’re almost of a height when Cas isn’t slouching. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Dean swallows his tongue. “Nothing, I just—”

“Do you underestimate me that badly, Mr. Smith?”

Heat creeps up to Dean’s ears, either from embarrassment or—something else, he’s not sure. “You have got to stop calling me that,” he says.

“I will when you pull that stick out of your ass.”

“Whatever. Where am I going?”

~~

Their first stop is a house in one of the less friendly neighborhoods of the city. There are no sidewalks to speak of, just grassy gravel, and the fences are more chain link than white picket. They stop in front of a dingy ranch that was painted day-glo blue once upon a time. Cas gets out of the car. “Wait here,” he says before shutting the door. Then he picks his way through the tangle of weeds and rusty, sun-bleached lawn ornaments to the front door.

Dean waits.

Cas disappears inside.

Dean turns off the engine and waits some more. The sun edges west, not quite committing to a long and golden sunset yet, but considering it; Dean turns the car back on long enough to crack the windows and coax in a breeze. It doesn’t help much.

A teenager walking a ragged-eared mutt wanders by, paying more attention to his phone than his footing. Wind rustles in a pair of ailing maple trees next door to the little blue house. Dean wonders exactly what Cas is doing in there. His best guess is selling drugs. That would track with his “work thing.” Dean tries not to think about being an accessory to criminal activity.

He’s about four seconds away from wigging out and driving off, even if it does mean leaving Cas stranded, when the front door opens again and Cas reappears. He’s followed by a teenage girl. She has a look of the feral about her, with her hair wild, braided down one side, her flannel too big for her slight shoulders and doodles in Sharpie all over her ripped jeans.

As they approach, Cas aiming for shotgun and the girl for the back seat, Dean hears their banter through the open window. They’re discussing the Transformers movies, of all things.

“I’m telling you, Bumblebee peed on John Turturro! How do you not remember that happening?” the girl is saying.

“You’re the one who told me how difficult it is to remember what happens in those movies. Too much visual information,” Cas says. “Dean, this is Claire. Claire, do you mind if Dean joins us this evening?” It sounds weirdly formal coming from him; Dean waves at Claire in the rearview mirror.

Claire raises an eyebrow at him, then looks back at Cas. “What’s he doing with _you_?” she asks.

“Hey,” Dean objects on reflex. “Don’t be rude.”

“He’s my friend,” Cas says, and lays a wholly unexpected hand, warm and heavy, on Dean’s shoulder. 

“Friend, eh?” Claire’s insinuation is clear as a bell, and it makes Dean’s stomach do a funny turn-over. The lingering touch to his shoulder doesn't help, there. 

“Yes,” Cas answers with just the barest edge of frost. “You know, the kind where one human finds another human and says ‘Yes, I like this one,’ and then they continue seeing each other?”

It’s more than a little bit of a truth-stretch, but Dean can only turtle so far into his button-down. 

“Whatever,” Claire says from the backseat; her eye-rolling is audible in the way only a teenager can manage. “Let’s just go.”

Cas directs them out of the neighborhood. Dean plays his part as silent chauffeur, listening idly to their conversation. They seem to be taking a circuitous route toward the trendy-artsy part of the city where the people are hip but the money hasn’t figured it out yet. While they drive, Dean learns a few things about Claire: she lives with her grandmother, she’s deeply interested in film theory, and she hasn’t been to school in almost two weeks.

“You’re gonna tell me to get back in my classes, aren’t you?” she asks, kicking Cas’s seat in front of her like a child half her age.

“I’m not going to tell you to do anything,” Cas says, bland as a saltine cracker, “because I’m fully aware of how counterproductive that would be.”

Claire is silent against that, but it’s the sort of huffy silence of someone who was all ready with the battering ram only to find that the door had swung open in front of her. 

“Me and my friends want to go on a road trip,” she says, like a volley.

“By all means,” Cas says. “I hear Tillamook is lovely this time of year.”

“Not to Tillamook, jerkface. We wanna go to New Orleans.”

“I’ve been there. It’s overrated. The Café Brulot is very impressive, though.”

“We might not ever come back.”

“Promise you’ll write?”

“You aren’t going to scream at me? Tell me I’m being an idiot and going to get myself killed?”

“If I did that, would it work? Or would you just want to prove me wrong?”

At a red light, Dean risks a glance at Cas. His expression is as dry as his voice, like the pages of an old book, but in the instant when Dean catches his eye, Dean gets a jolt of his real fear. She could do it, and there’s very little Cas could actually do to stop her.

In the rearview, Claire looks like she doesn’t know if she wants to throw a punch or start running her victory lap. 

The quiet lasts until the light changes and Cas points across the street. “We’re here. Find someplace to park.”

It’s a kitschy little Thai place they wander into; the man behind the counter is barely Claire's height and greets Cas like an old friend. “Hello!” he cries, his accent thick. “Mango sticky rice? Ice tea?”

“Yes, please. Thank you,” Cas says, and the little man bustles away.

Claire slides into one of the booths by the window, looking out at the potholed parking lot and cars zooming past on the other side. Cas hovers; Dean hovers harder.

“I can wait in the car, or something,” Dean says, jabbing over his shoulder with his thumb.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, will you both sit down?” Claire moans, leaning against the window in an artful slouch. “You look like creepers just standing there.”

“Are you sure?” Cas asks. “Dean could sit at a different table.”

“I literally do not care. Quit making it weird.”

Cas and Dean share a shrug, then take the other side of the booth, Cas sliding over to the window and Dean perching close to the edge to avoid thigh contact. The little man brings over a tray with a plate of rice and mango and three iced teas topped with sweetened milk.

“So,” Castiel begins. “How’s your grandmother?”

Somehow, Claire manages to sink deeper into her booth. “You saw her,” she mumbles.

Cas doesn’t say anything, but he lowers his chin, and even though he’s not the target, Dean can feel the power of that wide, guileless stare. Claire withstands it a whole twenty seconds before she cracks, dropping a weight from her shoulders on a sigh. “She’s getting worse. She thinks I’m a home intruder half the time and my mom the other half. She keeps saying shit about my dad, and—” her voice warbles; tears tremble on her lashes and she snaps herself at them, clenching her jaw and scrubbing at her cheeks with the sleeves of her flannel. “It’s all bullshit. And, I mean, whatever, I barely remember the guy. But when she gets going on Kaia—” Her shoulders hunch up around her ears, and there’s a mutinous glint behind the shine of tears.

“Who’s Kaia?” Dean surprises himself by asking.

“My girlfriend.” Claire says it like she’s tossing a gauntlet on the table, daring him to say anything.

“Right on,” is all that comes out of Dean’s mouth, complete with a thumbs up that even he knows is dorky. It gets half a smile out of Claire, in spite of everything.

“You know it’s not your fault,” Cas says.

“Doesn’t matter,” Claire says, sinking back down into herself. “You know where they’ll put me when she—” The closing of her throat stops her.

“That won’t happen. I’ll make sure of it.”

“You can’t control the state.”

“But I can provide alternative options and letters of recommendation. And so can your teachers.” Claire snorts like a tired bull, but Cas presses on. “That’s why your classes are so important.”

“Ugh.”

“I know. But school is the best way to convince them that your nose is clean. Okay? You know that.”

It’s a hot take if Dean’s ever heard one, but he keeps his mouth shut. He guesses Claire’s not exactly the best audience for the intrinsic benefits of academia. 

“Whatever. They can’t find me if I’m on the other coast,” she says.

“And then what? Where will you go from there? How long do you think you can run, Claire?”

“It worked for you, didn’t it?”

Cas doesn’t even blink or miss a beat. “I’m not here to be a role model. I’m here for you to learn from my mistakes, not make them yourself.”

Claire’s shoulders thump on the back of the booth. “I guess.”

There’s a few moments of quiet in which Cas stirs the milk into his tea with a straw. The ice clinks in the glass. “What does Kaia think of this road trip idea?”

“Oh, she’s totally on board,” Claire says, but the edges are dull, and she’s speaking directly to the table between them.

Cas waits her out again.

“She thinks it’s dumb,” Claire admits on a huge sigh. “And, yeah, probably gonna get us dead in a ditch somewhere.”

“But she agreed to go with you?”

“She said maybe.”

“That’s someone very special you have there, Claire. Someone who loves you very much.” Claire’s face crumples, just for a second, and this time she doesn’t scrub away the tears. “If you can’t do it for yourself, can you do it for her?”

Claire doesn’t answer, except to bury her face in her palms and let her shoulders shake, silent. Dean casts about for somewhere else to look, trying to let her have some semblance of privacy, and ends up staring at a display of brightly colored baubles, pocket-sized elephant statues and silks and jewelry for sale by the entrance, waiting for the storm to pass.

Slowly, Claire’s breathing evens out. A nudge of Cas's elbow makes Dean start, but he’s just unwrapping his bundle of silverware so he can give Claire his napkin to dry her eyes and blow her nose.

“Thanks,” she says, barely a whisper.

“It’s really very good rice,” Cas says, and it takes Dean a second to realize he’s being spoken to. “Try some?”

Dean picks up and unwraps his own fork with fingers that feel numb; slowly, he puts some of the rice in his mouth. It is very good. Sweet, sticky, just as advertised.

“Good?” Cas asks.

“Mmhmm.”

“Try some with the mango.”

Dean does. Then washes it down with a gulp of sweetened tea. He never knew rice could be a dessert, but he sure does now. 

Claire shifts. Cas’s attention is on her in a heartbeat; Dean catches her embarrassed smile as she flicks her hair and tugs at her flannel.

“Sorry you had to see that,” she says, and for a second, Dean catches a glimpse of the real girl between the hardened shell and the battered heart.

“No worries,” Dean says, and pushes the plate of sticky rice toward her.

Her smile is shy, but Castiel’s is glowing.

~~

“Alright, well, it’s been real,” Claire says as they pull up in front of the little blue house. “Later, gators.”

“Good to meet you, Claire,” Dean calls over his shoulder.

“You too, dork.” Then she’s out of the car, waving to Cas, slouching toward her front door. 

She leaves a heavy silence in her wake. The car is still running, but the radio’s off, so it’s just the lo-fi hum of the engine between them. It's just the other side of sunset; the sky is two shades of cotton candy, baby blue with sweeps of pink. Dean tries out this waiting thing to see if it works on Cas like it had worked on Claire.

It doesn’t. 

“Do you need directions? I’m sure your phone could tell you how to get back to your house.”

Direct approach, then. “What the hell was this?”

“Claire needed someone to talk to. That someone is me.” 

“You said it was a work thing?”

“Yes.”

A beat. “So?”

“So what?”

“This is your job?”

Castiel sighs, thumps his head back on the seat. “Yes. I’m an as-needed counselor on call for a queer youth resource center.”

Dean stares at his own knuckles tight on the steering wheel. “Oh.”

“That’s it? Oh?”

“It’s just… not what I expected.”

“And what did you expect?” Cas spits, like he knows exactly what kind of assumptions Dean had made before Claire came out of that house. Dean chokes on the taste of his own foot. 

“I dunno,” Dean shrugs as he finally pulls away from the curb and, hopefully, from this conversation. He's got to stop doing this if he has any hopes of actually being friends with this guy. 

Which, apparently, is something he wants to do. 

Cas’s silence is a few degrees above arctic. Dean focuses on getting them home quickly and in one piece.

He desperately needs a shower; he can smell himself.

They’re off the freeway and at a red light not far from home when Dean can’t take it anymore. “So, uh.” He clears the frog from his throat. “Do you enjoy it?”

“Hm? What?”

“Were you asleep?”

“No.” But Cas’s bleary eyes say otherwise.

“Uh-huh.” The light turns green and Dean makes his left turn.

“You’re asking if I enjoy my vocation.”

“Yeah, you know.”

“No, I take troubled teenagers out for lunch because they pay me the big money for it.”

Dean snorts. “C’mon, man, be serious for half a second.”

More silence; Dean navigates a road that’s half construction and chews on his tongue.

“It’s… challenging,” Castiel says at last. “Occasionally heartbreaking. Well. Frequently, actually. And most of the time you have no idea if you’re doing the right thing, or making the right calls, or making any kind of difference. And God forbid they thank you for it. But there are a few people making their way through this world right now who would be either imprisoned or dead if I hadn't talked with them, and that’s not just arrogance. So. Whatever that’s worth.”

Dean turns up their street as the last of the pink in the sky fades to a a washed-out purple-gray with a few pinprick stars. His hands move the wheel on autopilot, disconnected from his brain and body, which are wholly focused on Castiel. He risks a glance at his face, watching his profile, his straight, sharp nose and soft, faraway eyes. He’s an enigma, and in the glow of the Prius’s dash lights, he looks ethereal. Alien. 

The car pulls into the driveway; in the wake of the engine, the silence is almost a louder hum.

“I just sell bridges,” Dean says.

Castiel looks over at him, barely more than a blue outline in the gathering gloom until his face cracks open in an uproarious, unexpected laugh.

“Hey, it’s not that funny.”

“Do you have one to sell me in San Francisco?” Cas asks through hissing giggles.

“Ha ha, that’s rich. Never heard that one before,” Dean says, completely failing not to laugh along with him. “Go feed your damn cats.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just an FYI, after this, posting will be Thursdays and _occasional_ Sundays. On the plus side, the chapters get longer, so... maybe it balances out?
> 
> Thanks for tuning in! And thanks to [Pallas Perilous](https://pallasperilous.tumblr.com/) and [Elanor-n-evermind](https://elanor-n-evermind.tumblr.com/) for the beta-reading!

Another week, another Monday, another nonfat soy latte. Another starch-pressed shirt, buttoned all the way up to his throat and cinched tight with a bold-colored tie. It’s different today because Dean has to try real hard not to think about black coffee in a cartoon bee mug or sunshine on his bare skin.

“Are your ears burning, Mr. Smith?”

Dean jumps at his desk, his computer screen coming back into focus. “What? Oh—sorry, Sir.”

Zachariah Adler steps through the door, smug smile on his bald-egg face. Dean doesn’t like him. Dean’s never liked him. He’s pretty sure the feeling is mutual, but they’re both professionals, so they deal with it the best they can.

“You’re looking a little red around the tips,” Adler says with a circling motion at the side of his own head.

Dean reflexively touches his ears, which have been feeling a little tender today, now that he thinks about it. “Must have missed them with the sunscreen over the weekend.”

“Ah, the weekend,” Adler says, somehow making the act of putting one’s hands in one’s pockets look passive-aggressive. “Anything exciting?”

Dean grinds his teeth. “Just getting some exercise. And some house projects, you know.” It's not even a lie. He'd spent most of Sunday doing some much-needed clearing out of his gutters while Cas took it upon himself to “supervise” from the bottom of the ladder. It's just also not the whole truth. 

“Mmhmm. Yes.” Adler takes a seat in the chair across from Dean’s desk, and Dean resigns himself to another several minutes of irritation. “I did notice you didn’t log your usual hours on Saturday.”

Dean blinks. He doesn’t want to give Adler an inch he doesn’t have to, but ultimately, he breaks the staring match. “Am I required to?”

“Well, no. Of course not. I’m sure your personal affairs are of utmost importance.”

The slimy bastard. He’s not even Dean’s direct superior; it’s none of his damn business.

“You know, when I was your age,” Adler continues, “I was working eighty-hour weeks constantly, and that was just at one job, let alone the second, or sometimes third. Now look at me.” He spreads his hands. Dean privately thinks there’s not much to look at but manages to keep his face blank. “Assistant Regional Distribution Director. Living the dream, buddy boy. Living. The. Dream. You know where I’d probably be if I hadn’t pulled that kind of weight?” He shakes his head at his hypothetical alternate self. “Not here, that’s for certain. Might still be hauling vacuums door to door, am I right?”

“Right.” Dean shifts in his office chair, feels his phone buzz in his pocket. “Was there something I can help you with, or…?”

Adler waves a hand. “I just thought I’d stop by for a chat, but I’ll leave you to it.” He gets to his feet and flashes a grin with far too many teeth and absolutely no light in his eyes. “I’m sure you have a lot to catch up on.”

Then he’s gone. Dean feels his upper lip curl on reflex. “Dick.”

Needing a moment to recoup, Dean pulls his phone out of his pocket to see what made it buzz. 

He spies Charlie’s name next to the text alert, and that puts a smile on his face as he opens it up. There’s a picture attachment: a selfie-style snapshot. It’s unmistakably Charlie; he recognizes her glowing grin and short fluffy bob of red hair, even though most of her face is eaten up by enormous round sunglasses. She’s wearing a banana-yellow swimsuit, and there’s a dark-haired beauty in cobalt blue pressing a kiss to her cheekbone.

_CHARLIE: [Tell me not to marry a girl I’ve known for two days]_

Dean snorts, feeling a tug behind his chest.

That could be him, he thinks. If he were just a little bit braver, he could be right there with her, soaking up that sunshine and getting kissed by not-quite-strangers.

But if he had, he wouldn’t have met Cas.

With a long button press, his phone screen goes dark. He shoves it back in his pocket, straightens his spine, and forces himself to focus on his work.

It doesn’t come as easy as usual.

~~

“Welcome home.”

“Hey. How’s it going?”

“Claire went to school today.”

“Oh, great. Good for her.”

“Thank you again for coming with us on Saturday.”

“I mean, sure. Not a problem. I kinda just felt like I was in the way.”

“You weren’t. I’m glad you got to meet her. She’s rough around the edges, but she has a good soul.”

“Yeah.”

~~

Dean hasn’t seen Cas on the porch since Monday. It’s startling how quickly something like that became a routine he looked forward to, how much he misses it when he’s not there. He wonders if Cas is having a busy time with the kids—wonders how Claire is doing—or if he’s out enjoying the sunshine, or if he’s just holed up in Anna’s house by himself. In his more melancholy moments, Dean wonders if Cas is taking Meg to the river. Or some other girl, since he’d said Meg wasn’t his girlfriend. It stings to think about, but he shakes it off. It’s not like he has any claim on the guy at all. They’re barely even friends, no matter what he’d said to Claire.

It doesn’t stop him from remembering, though. At night, after he crawls between his sheets, he lets himself think about Castiel’s skin, warm and glistening and bronzed by the sun. 

Those moments wrestling in the water get a lot of playback. Just remembering the prickly-hot sensation of their limbs sliding together under the waves is enough to set him off, his brain magnifying and elaborating on a few innocent moments to fuel fantasy after fantasy. When combined with the vague memory of the sound of his sex grunts through the wall, Dean hasn’t had this much fun jerking off since he was sixteen and first discovered that porn could have two dudes in it.

By Thursday night, his dick’s starting to get conditioned, because he’s half-hard before he even climbs into bed.

“This is getting ridiculous,” he says to himself, and rolls over on his back and tucks his hands under his pillow. His dick strains up against the weight of the blankets, but he refuses. Not tonight. He’s going to be good tonight.

He’s very nearly convinced himself when he hears it.

A soft, low groan, and Dean’s eyes snap open. A thump of the bedpost, and Dean stares up at the wall behind his head. Not again.

A masculine voice.

Two masculine voices.

Dean’s blood runs ice cold and then blazing hot, a five-star roller coaster of endorphins flooding his system.

That panting litany he hears is definitely not Cas—the tenor is all wrong—but if he listens past the vehement agreement, he can hear that low murmuring again, Cas’s voice encouraging, cajoling, enticing. Speaking filth into some—some _guy’s_ ear, and Dean’s brain helpfully supplies images of Cas’s chest pressed against a man's, a pair of cocks cupped in one of his huge hands— 

Dean jolts out of bed like he’s been shocked and stares at the wall. 

This can’t be right. Cas is straight. Isn’t he?

If he’s not, then— 

The bedpost starts thumping in earnest. The other guy groans ecstatically in time with the thrusts.

Dean bails. His feet carry him down the hall to the tune of his own racing heart. He ends up in his bathroom with the fan on and the faucet running, his pajama pants shoved down around his thighs, furiously working himself through a quick, fiery orgasm that leaves him boneless and heavy.

He sleeps on the couch that night.

~~

Cas tries to get Balthazar out the door before Dean has a chance to leave for work, figuring his other option was to play host until he was certainly gone, and he can only stand Balthazar in limited quantities.

Unfortunately, apparently, he’s missed the mark on both ends. 

“Is that him, then?” Balthazar says with a tip of his sunglasses—unnecessary, the morning is overcast—as he strolls out onto the porch. Sure enough, Cas spies Dean hurrying to his car, briefcase in hand, eyes on his watch.

“Dammit.”

Dean spots them almost as soon as he rounds the nose of the car. His footsteps halt; his spine stiffens; his expression runs the gamut from surprise to shock to shuttered so tight, Castiel has no hope of seeing what’s behind.

“Well, then, let’s give the boy a show, shall we?”

Cas’s attention snaps back to Balthazar. He’s leaning in, all cocky smirk and morning breath and wrong.

All wrong.

He pulls Cas in by the front of his T-shirt, and even as Castiel lets himself be kissed, a yawning pit opens up in his stomach. This is wrong.

He hears a car door opening. A set of keys clang on the pavement, a low mutter of “God fucking dammit—” from the driveway across the lawn, and—

Cas breaks the kiss. “Get out of here,” he growls, pulling Balthazar’s fist from his shirt and pushing him away harder than he intended.

“You wound me, Cassie,” Balthazar says in a voice Castiel doesn’t believe for a second. “Catch you later.”

Cas doesn’t pay any mind to his exit, already rushing around the back end of Dean’s Prius—Dean has to pump the brakes hard to avoid knocking him into the street—and hastily rapping his knuckles on the driver’s side window.

Dean presses the button to lower the glass. “Better hurry, I’m running late.”

Cas opens his mouth, but whatever he’d hoped would come out of it doesn’t materialize in his brain. “Uh.” Dean just gives him an expectant look, eyebrows climbing, and what comes tumbling out of Cas’s mouth is, “That wasn’t what it looked like.”

Dean’s whole expression blinks; his face goes the color of sour cream and he won’t look Cas in the eye. “Is he ‘not your boyfriend,’ too?”

“No, he’s not. I don’t have—they’re all just friends.”

“And why do you think I care? You do what you want, dude, it’s none of my business.” Still no eye contact. In fact, it’s the opposite of eye contact.

Fine. Right. Cas closes his eyes and gathers some strength. “Do you want to hang out again tomorrow?”

That gets him a sideways glance. “Hang out? What are we, in high school?” 

“Just answer the question.”

Dean looks at him for a long time, then looks anywhere else. “Yeah, sure.”

“Great. Wonderful.”

“I gotta go now,” Dean says.

“Yes. Uh. Have a good day.” Cas stands up from where he’d leaned on the door, and Dean immediately starts backing down the driveway. The window, when he rolls it back up between them, is opaque with the reflection of the morning sky.

Cas pulls the silk of Anna’s robe tighter around him. Chillier than expected, he hurries back into the duplex.

~~

The feeding schedule is not actually that difficult now that Castiel is used to it. It had taken him a few days of grousing over Anna’s detailed notes and being snubbed by Ellie—definitely the princess of the house—before he’d gotten it right. But once he did, the feline household ran like a well-oiled machine.

True to Anna’s word, Rosco was mostly invisible, only emerging for food and occasionally to stare from the corner while Castiel went through his yoga routine. Ellie had refused to let herself be brushed for the first few days, but Castiel had bribed her with catnip and a bit of tuna—“Don’t tell your mother,” he’d whispered—and now she lays quite happily on her towel and allows Castiel to remove the excess fluff from her back, belly, tail, and even legs. One time she even purred for him. That had felt like success.

Bizarrely, it’s Thomas, the supposedly affectionate one, who still views Castiel as an interloper, only grudgingly accepting food and rarely allowing himself to be pet in favor of yeowling at the doors and windows. Cas is waiting to wake up to the smell of cat pee. He’s heard cats do that as an act of rebellion.

It’s during Ellie’s daily grooming that he starts talking to them.

“He’s just some guy,” he says, out of the blue. Ellie levels him with a yellow-eyed stare, one part disdain, one part indifference, five parts sass. “You won’t judge me, will you?”

She puts her head back down on the towel and stretches out her front legs.

“Good. Glad we’re on the same page.” He runs the brush down her belly and thinks. “He’s just some guy,” he repeats, “some bougie businessman I shouldn’t give two shits about. Right? So what on earth is my deal?”

Ellie provides no input. Only purrs.

“I mean, okay, he’s hot. Really hot. But he’s probably also more trouble than he’s worth.” It has the distinct ring of trying to convince himself, even as it comes out of his mouth. “I should leave him be. He’s kind of an asshole. Not worth trying to get in his pants.”

Ellie cranes her feline head and stares at him. “Mrow,” she says.

“I know,” Cas sighs.

He’s not going to do that. Dean’s a bit stuck-up, sure, but watching that shell start to crack open has Castiel intrigued. He wants to keep peeling back the layers, see what lies inside.

That’s almost why he wants to back off. If it was a simple matter of seduction, it would be… well, simple. But now he’s _interested_ , and that’s a far more dangerous game to play.

He shouldn’t have had Balthazar over. The whole affair had been a lot less fun than it had been with Meg, and then that shameful display on the porch… Castiel’s not used to feeling embarrassed by his exploits. He doesn’t like it. 

He’s just waiting to be stood up tomorrow, for Dean to play the ‘duty calls’ card and retreat back into his buttoned-up suits.

Ellie stands up, shaking herself, and hops off the towel-covered sofa cushion to the floor. Enough brushing for now, apparently. Cas sighs and deals with the fuzz, then checks his phone.

All quiet on that front. Kevin had been in crisis earlier in the week over college admissions but seems to be back on track; Krissy is bravely holding it together for her little clutch of newly emancipated housemates; Alex is still a hard knot of anger and pain that he won’t be unraveling this particular Friday afternoon. He hasn’t heard from Claire, but no news is good news there.

What the hell. He’s been responsible for long enough today. He sends a text to the youth center to mark himself unavailable, then goes digging for his stash.

~~

When Dean knocks on Anna’s door on Saturday, it’s with a nervous swirl in his stomach and wearing a sparkling-white T-shirt. Still slacks, of course, and maybe he'd gotten the T-shirt at a corporate conference the previous year, and maybe it's still crisp and stiff around the neck, but it’s not a button-down, so he feels like he should get credit.

He’s about to try knocking again when he spies a note taped to the doorbell button.

_Dean—come on in, the water’s great_

Well, okay then. Dean stuffs the note into his pocket and turns the knob to step inside. 

He’s greeted by the skittering of claws as one of the cats—Rosco, by the shade of orange—goes tearing up the stairs, and then the completely alarming sight of Cas’s ass in tight spandex shorts.

“Whoa—uh. Sorry, should I—” Dean has no idea where to look that isn’t Cas’s bare, muscular thighs and calves or perfect round ass or wiry arms and shoulders holding him up or an up-shirt glimpse of the chest and stomach that have been haunting his dreams—yoga. Dean’s brain click-thumps back into gear. That’s yoga he’s got to be doing. “I can come back later.” Fuck, Dean’s going to have a heart attack.

“You don’t have to go,” Cas says, not sounding out of breath in the slightest, even in the middle of what is supposed to be a workout routine. “I'm almost finished. There's beer in the fridge. Make yourself at home.”

Cas doesn’t even look up from his sun salutation; doesn’t even open his eyes, really. Just breathes very slowly and deliberately through the poses. Dean is not much of a beer drinker, but it’s an excuse to step away to collect himself, so he takes it. 

He cracks a light, foamy wheat beer in a bottle, idly checks the calorie content and forcibly shuts down the part of his brain that screams about it. It’s this new thing he’s trying out called not being such a stick in the mud. He takes a long sip and cautiously approaches the living room again.

Cas is lying on his front now, lengthwise on a thin purple mat. Only not really lying, because it looks more intentional than that, his muscles all still active and flexed even though he’s prone. On a long inhale, he arches his head and shoulders off the floor into what Dean thinks might be upward-facing dog? He’s never really been interested in yoga. But watching Cas, he thinks maybe he should take it up. With Cas’s eyes safely closed, he lets himself be mesmerized by the way he breathes. He finds his own breathing syncing up with the slow, deliberate in and out, and it’s almost its own kind of meditation.

Except for the part of Dean’s brain that’s stuck on the other night. And yesterday morning. If he listens too hard to those long, slow breaths, they quicken in his mind into panting grunts and gasps. If he looks too long, he sees that nameless guy pull Castiel close and press their lips together, sees the way Cas’s head had turned so their noses nestled side by side. He’d felt that kiss like a punch to the gut, a clenching fist of raw desire that had left him breathless, shaken. 

He sucks down his beer, and Jesus, he needs to find something else to focus on. He feels dizzy, though on the alcohol or on Cas, he’s not sure.

“Mrahh,” says a small feline voice from near Dean’s ankles.

“Hey, TomTom,” Dean says to the cat, and he’s never been so relieved to get hair on his pants. The leggy black and white tuxie circles his ankles and meows up at him again, purring, arching his back against Dean’s shins. Dean bends down and scritches the back of his neck.

“Did you get him to calm down? I’m impressed,” Castiel says from where he’s laying on his back, arms and legs lax and splayed like a squashed toad. “I think he misses Anna.”

Dean stands back up straight and nods. “Yeah, they’re pretty attached. I’m not surprised.” Thomas gives a shake and wanders away, pausing to sniff at Cas’s foot, then flopping to the side to bathe himself. “Is this still exercise?” Dean asks after watching Cas not move for a few moments.

“It’s savasana.”

“Uh. Gesundheit?”

A lazy smile tugs its way onto Cas’s face. “Savasana. Corpse pose. It’s essential for allowing the body to absorb the benefits of your practice.”

Dean feels his brows do a skeptical dance on his forehead. “Uh-huh.”

“It's also a great excuse for a nap.”

“Now the truth comes out,” Dean says, tipping his beer bottle in Cas’s direction.

With a long-suffering sigh, Cas rolls onto his side and then gracefully to his feet. “You should try it sometime,” he says.

“What, taking a nap?”

“Yoga in general.” Cas bends to pick up his mat and starts rolling it into a tube. “I could show you, if you like.”

“Uh.” That’s just what Dean needs, to be bent over and manhandled into strange, pretzel-y shapes by—nope. Stopping that train of thought right there. “Not sure I’m dressed for it.”

Cas gives him a _very_ deliberate once-over as he tucks his rolled-up mat under his arm. “I suppose not. Nice T-shirt, though. I love Microsoft Teams.”

“Shut up,” Dean says, trying to cross his arms over the logo on the chest, but getting hung up on the beer in his hand. “So, what’d you have in mind for today, anyway? Skeeball on the waterfront? Climbing Mt. Hood?”

With a grin, Cas turns and flops dramatically onto a big squashy gray sofa that is usually covered end to end in Anna’s paperwork, but today is blissfully empty. “You’re looking at it.”

“Pardon?” Dean finds himself moving toward the other end of the sofa anyway.

Cas scoops up the remote and turns on the TV. There’s a Netflix queue waiting for them, some genre show with dark cinematography and two handsome lead actors who appear to take vampire hunting far too seriously. “Salt and Burn? Really?”

“A friend of mine has been bugging me for years to watch this show. There are fifteen seasons, Dean. I need a binging buddy.”

“Why don’t you ask your friend?”

“Because if I watch it with her, she’ll spoil all the plot points and quote the best lines two seconds before they happen.”

Dean snorts. “Sounds like my friend, Charlie.”

Cas’s head whips around. “Charlie Bradbury?”

Dean blinks, incredulous. “Yea tall,” he indicates a point just below his collarbone. “Redhead, cosplay nerd—”

“Supremely homosexual?”

Dean nods.

“That’s her.”

Dean cackles. “Dude! She’s like my best friend. How do you know Charlie?”

Cas bites his lip and ducks his chin; the bashfulness of the expression throws Dean’s head for a loop. “Promise never to tell a soul?”

Dean nods, wondering what on earth someone like Castiel could possibly be ashamed of.

“I used to LARP.”

“No way.” Dean laughs again. “I never would have picked you for the Moondoor type.”

Cas raises a challenging eyebrow at him. “Do you have any idea how kinky nerd girls are, Dean?”

Dean’s mouth runs dry. “Uh. Can’t say that I do.”

“Boys too, for that matter,” Cas says as if it’s nothing. He’s busy tapping out a message on his phone, so he’s not even looking at Dean when he says it, which is probably good, because Dean locks up tighter than an old truck in subzero temperatures.

“Uh.” He drains his beer for lack of anything better to do with his mouth. “I’ll take your word for it.”

When he looks back, Cas’s attention is on him again, for better and for worse. The corner of his lips twitch, and even though his eyes are softly hooded, they pierce right through to the back of Dean’s brain. “What about you? Do you ever don the tunic and tights?” Cas asks.

“They’re called hose, but no,” Dean says, idly peeling the label off his beer bottle.

“Hmm. Shame. You’d wear them very well. You should let Charlie talk you into it sometime.”

“I’ll go if you go,” Dean says, and then wants to bite his tongue because what on earth is he getting himself into?

Castiel grins like the cat with the cream. “It’s a deal.”

Well, shit.

“Are we gonna watch this show or what?” he asks

“We are. But first.” Cas rummages through a drawer under the coffee table and comes up with a heavy glass pipe, a small jar, and a grinder. With practiced, efficient motions, he loads the grinder with fragrant cannabis. “Do you mind?” he asks, a mid-grind afterthought.

“Does Anna know you’re smoking in here?” 

“Please,” Cas says. “This is her favorite pipe.”

Now there’s an eyebrow-raiser. Dean can’t even come up with a response before Cas has finished pinching his ground herb into the bowl and brought the pipe up to his lips. He pauses there, though, and lowers it. “I can go outside if it will bother you. Or simply not indulge.”

“Huh? Oh. No, it’s fine.” It’s been a long time since college and his short-lived dorm life, but he isn’t exactly a stranger to weed. He kind of misses the way it had loosened his limbs and let him not think about anything for a while, but somewhere along the line, not thinking had turned into thinking too much. There were a lot of reasons he’d stopped, but the anxiety didn’t help.

At any rate, he finds himself averting his gaze from Cas’s hollowing cheeks as he sucks smoke into his lungs, then again from the lush curl of smoke billowing out between parted lips.

He doesn’t think Cas catches him looking, but he tries to take a desperate sip from his empty beer anyway.

“Mind if I grab another?” 

“It exists to be consumed,” Cas says through another plume of smoke. 

Once Dean has returned with another beer, Cas starts the show. A heavy rock soundtrack fills the silence between them, and Dean relaxes a little, leaning into the couch cushions. The gritty, barely lit cinematography and melodramatic cold open is not exactly Dean’s usual tastes, but it’s not enough to chase him off. They both start out gently mocking the dialogue and the over-the-top acting, but Dean finds himself engaged against his will in the plot of estranged brothers reuniting, in the world unfolding around them.

“How the hell do they keep all that gear in the trunk of a Mustang?” Dean asks at the end of the first episode.

“Hmm?” Cas humms. Dean turns to find him tucked into a ball in the corner of the sofa, head leaning on the generous back cushion, clearly watching Dean more than the show. Unless he was taking a nap. Yeah, he’d fallen asleep, probably. That’s way more believable than the idea that Cas might have been _looking_ at him—

Dean’s going to bust a capillary if he’s not careful. Blushing this much cannot be good for his blood pressure. “You wanna watch the show, or are you asleep?”

Cas blinks, hazy-eyed and slow. Dean hasn’t been keeping track of how much of that weed he’s smoked, but there is a thin haze of it in the air. 

“Maybe I found something more interesting to look at,” Cas says, low and smoky and entirely dangerous.

 _Red alert._ Klaxons go off all up and down Dean’s nervous system as Castiel leans and scoots toward him over the cushions, unfolding like a panther stretching in the sun, pouring himself into Dean’s personal space and— 

Dean turns his head at the last possible second. Cas’s kiss lands on his cheek instead of his lips, and it still feels like a firebrand.

Dean shoots to his feet. “Uh.”

Cas blinks up at him, wide-eyed, mouth still fishing forward but with dawning horror.

“I can’t,” Dean says. “Sorry, I just—”

“No, Dean, I’m sorry,” Cas says, retreating back across the sofa cushions. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Sit, please.” He settles back into his end of the sofa, feet tucked up under himself and hands folded in his lap.

Dean sits. Dries his palms on his slacks. The second episode is playing, and he focuses there, but fails to catch the thread of the plot. He keeps his eyes glued to the screen anyway.

The silence stretches between them, even with the TV blaring. Dean starts to get a crick in his back from sitting so stiffly. He doesn’t dare glance back over at Cas, but he watches him out of the corner of his eye. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t reach for the pipe again. When Dean does finally look at him, Cas is staring at the TV with the same blank expression he’s sure has been on his own face this whole time.

He wonders if it’s just him feeling the tension, if Cas has shrugged him off as a lost cause already and moved on. It’s not like he doesn’t have other sources of—other people he can—

Dean has the jittery feeling of an opportunity slipping through his fingers. Part of him wants to grab it and hold on as tight as he can, wants to reach out and pull Castiel back into that kiss. He can feel it trembling in his arms, in the pounding race of his heart.

But he can’t. For so many reasons, he just can’t. He’s stuck to the cushions, frozen in place.

He wants Cas. He knows that much. But he’s been holding out this damn long, it seems somehow anticlimactic to just _go for it_ now. Besides, if he did this now, with Cas, he'd be just another conquest. Just another notch in the bedpost. 

Dean's not sure he could let go the same way afterward.

“I should head out,” Dean says the second the end credits flash across the screen. He jumps to his feet like he’s spring-loaded and shuffles around the back of the couch toward the door.

“Dean—” Cas twists around, reaches over the back of the sofa to grab his wrist. “I’m sorry. I misread the situation, clearly, and I want you to know that won’t happen again.”

“Yeah, well.” Cas is stronger than he looks, his hand dry and warm and occupying Dean’s entire attention on his arm. He tightens his own fists.

“Can you forgive me?”

Dean huffs, nervous laughter. “I mean, yeah. Nothing to forgive.”

“It’s just—” Cas sighs and scrubs at his hair with the hand not still holding Dean. “I don’t actually have that many friends.”

“That’s not what I’ve heard.” It sounds harsh, accusatory, when really Dean just wants to run.

If anything, Cas looks embarrassed, the way he ducks his head. “I’m sorry about that too.”

“You don’t need to be sorry for living your life, man.”

“But I—” Cas bites his tongue. “I’m not sorry for my exploits. But I am sorry that hearing them has made you uncomfortable. That won’t happen again either. I promise.”

Dean shrugs. Everything he could say is either a lie or hideously self-incriminating.

For a few long moments, Dean is still rooted to the floor. Cas’s hand is gentle, now, but still curled around Dean’s wrist. Dean doesn’t pull away. He just hangs there in the balance.

Until Cas’s thumbnail traces a tiny circle against the tender skin above his palm. He snatches his hand away.

“I should get to work,” he mutters.

Cas doesn’t put up a fight. Doesn’t say anything to try and stop Dean from walking out the door, and that’s almost the most disappointing part of the day.

Almost.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick note! I've added a ballpark estimate for how many chapters this story will end up at. It may be 11, it may be 13, but it's in that ballpark.
> 
> As always, thanks to [Elanor-n-evermind](https://elanor-n-evermind.tumblr.com/) for the beta reading and cheer leading. <3

No more nocturnal escapades. No more flashes of skin under silk. No more aroma of pot smoke drifting from the porch or from the windows. Dean tries to tell himself that’s a good thing, that he’s not looking for Castiel every time he pulls into his driveway. Pretends not to feel that little sinking sensation in his stomach every time he comes up the walkway to an empty porch.

He goes through the motions—work, home, sitcom, work out, martini more often than not—and pretends it doesn’t feel even more hollow than it did before. Cas had been a confusing splash of color, only pointing out how gray everything else is by contrast.

He knows he’s being a baby, but he can’t help it. Cas is the best chance he’s had in years, maybe ever, of losing his V card, and instead of jumping on the chance like a burr in dog fur, he’s just frozen. Can’t make himself go forward, doesn’t want to go back.

But also, it was just a kiss. An attempted kiss. Maybe he’s blowing this out of proportion, putting the cart way before the horse. Just because Cas had tried to kiss him doesn’t mean they were about to hop in the sack. 

So he tries to forget that sloe-eyed look of intent. Puts out of his mind the way his whole body had sparked like a grassfire just at Castiel’s aura pressing into his personal space bubble. He hadn't even had to touch him.

God, what if he had? 

In Dean’s mind’s eye, in the dark of midnight, he replays a million scenarios where he didn’t chicken out. Where he had the spine to stay on that couch, to let Castiel make good on the promise of his gaze. 

But he still doesn't see him. Not even a shadow.

As the weekend approaches, he really hopes Cas will appear and offer to spend the day with him again like nothing had happened. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t, and Dean can’t even blame him. 

Each day he tells himself he’s going to go up to Cas’s—Anna’s—door and apologize or strike up a conversation or ask to hang out or something. And each day, he puts his head down and aims for his own front door instead.

Coward. 

~~

Dean is startled out of a fitful sleep sometime well past the witching hour. At first he can’t figure out what woke him up—maybe the rain. It’s viciously loud outside the window he’d left open in an attempt to coax in a breeze. This thunderstorm has hung heavy over the city all day, warm and gravid, and now that it’s broken, there’s a damp chill in the air. He’s about to roll over and try and go back to sleep when he hears what woke him up:

Thumping. Rhythmic pounding. For a crazed second, he stares at the wall above his head, heart in his throat—yeah, okay, he’s awake now—but no. That’s his front door.

On half-sleeping legs, he stumbles out of bed, down the hall, feet slipping on the carpeted stairs as Dean makes his way toward the intrusion. The foyer light stabs at his eyeballs; it’s with one eye half open that he cracks the door and peeks out.

It’s Cas. Bedraggled, wild-eyed, shifting on his feet. “Cas? The hell—”

“I can’t find Thomas.” The words rush out of Cas’s mouth faster than Dean can make sense of them.

“What?”

“Thomas. I can’t find him. I thought he was hiding from the thunder, but then I found the screen in the office window loose and I think he got out but I don’t know and Anna is going to kill me—”

“Woah, hey, slow down,” Dean says. “Still at, like, sixty percent capacity here.”

“I need your help. Please, will you help me look for him?”

Dean glances at the spatters of rain on the walk beyond the porch turning the concrete several shades darker gray. “It’s pouring,” he says.

“Yes. That’s why I have to find him as soon as possible.”

Dean rubs at his eyes, the bridge of his nose, and peers at the clock on his DVR. His circadian rhythm is hosed, anyway, he thinks.

Is he actually going to do this? Wander into the cold, dark rain with an almost-stranger to look for a damn cat?

Not almost-stranger. Cas.

“Alright,” he says. “Let me put some clothes on.”

“Thank you,” Cas says in a rush. “I’ll be out here. Do you have a flashlight?”

Dean has two flashlights, and they head out with them in hand. By the time they reach the end of the block, Dean’s sweat-wicking jacket is saturated and Cas’s hair is plastered to his forehead in soaked locks, rainwater rivulets streaming down his nose. Cas had pushed a crinkly little bag of treats into Dean’s hand, but it stays crumpled in his pocket because Cas has treat bag duty covered. He’s shaking it like he’s ringing a bell, trying to scare up a ghost.

They don’t find Thomas. They shine their beams of light into hedges, behind garbage bins; Dean slips in the mud of a neighbor’s yard; Cas practically crawls under every car they pass. The thunderstorm rolls on by overhead, the rain turning to a gentle patter on Dean’s shoulders. But they don’t find Thomas.

By the time they loop back around to their own duplex for the third time, Cas looks like he’s about to cry, lips pulled back in a grimace and eyes red around the rims. For all the damp, he might actually be crying already, and Dean would have very little way of knowing.

“Maybe tomorrow we can put up some flyers,” Dean says, knowing it’s a false hope.

Cas crumbles. He scrubs at his eye with the heel of one hand, shoulders giving a single hard shake. Dean averts his eyes, letting him have a private moment. Overhead, a vague indigo has started to show behind the dark, ragged edges of the rain clouds. Dean’s dizzy with exhaustion and interrupted sleep, and he’s sure his alarm is going to be going off in far too few hours. The best he can hope for is a nap, at this point.

“Thank you for the help,” Cas says, bringing Dean’s attention back. “I hope you don’t suffer unduly from this.”

“Hey, no problem,” Dean says. 

Cas looks forlornly around their shared yard which is just starting to reflect the gray advance of dawn. He looks like he’s searching for his last scrap of hope, and Dean can’t just— 

“C’mere,” he says, and reaches for Cas’s shoulder. He’s still holding the flashlight in that hand, but Cas gets the idea anyway and lets himself be pulled into an embrace.

It takes barely a heartbeat before Cas’s arms come up around him in return. They hold tight for a few seconds, rocking to and fro, Cas burying his face in Dean’s neck. It’s damp and squelchy, a weird combination of hot and cold. Cas’s T-shirt oozes like a sponge wherever it's squeezed, and Dean’s hardly any better in his athletic jacket. But Dean can feel the muscles of Cas’s shoulders and back, feel him breathing under his hands. He smells like petrichor.

They both pull back; it’s a mutual thing. Cas looks a little bashful.

“Thank you,” he says again, then shakes himself. “You need some sleep.”

“So do you, by the way,” Dean says.

Cas snorts his opinion on how likely that is, and they turn as one toward their front doors.

Inside, Dean strips himself of all clothing and shoves it straight into the washing machine—he’ll deal with it later—and takes a brief, very warm shower just to get the rainwater off his skin and out of his hair. Every single muscle in his body is screaming at him. Without even turning on any lights, he trudges to his bedroom on leaden legs and flops down in the blessed haven of his bed.

He’s certain it will only take him a few seconds to drop off, but his swift downward dive is interrupted by the feeling of four small feet landing on the mattress by his legs. “Mhraahh,” says a small, creaky voice.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding.”

~~

“Dean? Wh—Oh, thank fuck.”

Cas’s face morphs from muzzily surprised to ecstatic relief in seconds when he opens the door for Dean and his furry interloper. Dean enters quickly and sets Thomas down on the sofa, where he proceeds to give himself a bath as if nothing is amiss.

He doesn’t get very far before Cas scoops him up in his arms. “You little bastard,” he says right into Thomas’s fur, voice gone a little trembly. “He’s hardly even wet.”

“Yeah.” Dean rubs at the back of his neck. “My window was open. No screen. I guess he must have climbed that maple out back and got the wrong side.”

“Thank you.” Cas clings to the cat like it were his very own child; Thomas just blinks and sniffs at Cas’s hair, still rain-damp, drying even wilder than usual.

“And to think,” Dean says, floating on nervous, sleep-deprived bubbles. “If I’d just stayed in bed, I’d probably have found him a lot faster.”

“I am sorry for your lost sleep. Truly.” Thomas finally gets enough of Cas’s squeezing and squirms until he gains his freedom. “I hope you can still catch a nap?”

“Nah. I think I’m awake now.” 

Cas leans his hip on the sofa and looks at him, long and contemplative. “In that case,” he says, slow, cautious. “Would you like to stay for coffee?”

It’s too many temptations all at once. Dean doesn’t think Cas would pull another move like last time, but he’s not so sure about himself—not now, not when Cas is looking all rumpled and soft. Not in the hazy, unreal silence of barely-dawn. Not when he feels jittery and half-real with lack of sleep, and standing so close to where he’d nearly been kissed is like holding onto a magnet with both hands.

“Uh. Nah. I’m trying to kick the habit,” he says, his feet shuffling him backwards toward the door. “Bad for the kidneys, y’know.”

Cas stares at him with those true-blue eyes piercing right through to Dean’s soul. A tiny smile tucks itself into the corner of his lips. “Thank you again, Dean,” is all he says, his voice pitched way down low.

“Sure thing,” Dean says, and then makes his escape.

Dean spends the next hour before his alarm really does go off kicking himself vigorously.

~~

“Casarito! Been way too long, friend!”

“Hello, Charles.”

Charlie has returned from her cruise pink around the nose and ears, her hair streaked with rose gold, overflowing with stories and the name Dorothy on her lips every other sentence. Cas sits in the booth of the bar, sips his white Russian, and listens to her word-vomit about glittering waves and even-more-glittery humans.

“I sort of forgot what straight people look like,” she says, idly watching the other patrons while they wait for their food. “Like, you know how you leave Pride and it’s kind of a shock? Imagine if Pride were 24/7 for three weeks straight.”

“Sounds exhausting.”

“Oh man, you have no idea.” When the server reappears with their trays piled high with burgers and fries, Charlie looks like she’s about to tackle him to the ground to get at her Mushroom and Swiss catastrophe. “Mmf, oh my god,” she says around a full mouth. “I needed this. I mean, sushi's great, but sometimes you just need a big ol’ hunk o’ meat, you know?”

Cas snorts, peeling open his burger to check for pickles. “Oh, I think I do. Probably better than you do, Ms. Les Bean.”

She throws a fry at him.

“So, what about you?” she asks once her first enormous bite is down the hatch. “Did I miss any grand landlocked adventures?”

“Nothing that compares,” Cas says, still surgically removing every pickle that has embedded itself in the cheese. “You know me. Mister Routine.”

Charlie slits her eyes at him, suspicious. Cas puts on his best innocent expression, tidily reassembling his bun.

“Out with it,” she says eventually. “Come on, spill the tea.”

Cas rolls his eyes to the heavens. “There’s no tea to spill, and you have definitely over-steeped yourself in gay culture.”

“Why do I not believe you?” Charlie sing-songs.

“It’s the truth,” Cas says, grumpy. He’d love to have more juicy details to report on the Dean front, but that ship is swiftly sailing off into the distance. “I hooked up with Meg, hooked up with Balthazar, nothing new there.” Charlie is still staring at him like he’s got until the count of ten before she lets it go. He’s not sure he’ll make it without squealing, so he throws out a decoy. “I started watching that Salt & Burn show you’re always after me about.”

It works. She goes full bouncy supernova. “Dude! Do you love it? Wait, if you hate it, don’t tell me, just keep watching, it gets so much better in the second season, you have to get to there, at least—”

“Relax,” Cas says. “I’m enjoying it. But I do have to wonder, how do they fit all that gear in the trunk of a Mustang?”

That brings Charlie up short. “More importantly, what the hell do you know about the size of a Mustang’s trunk? Aren’t you, like, allergic to cars?”

Shit. “Uh.” He’s trapped himself.

Charlie points an accusatory finger over the table. “You  _ did _ meet somebody!” 

“Not exactly how you think,” Cas grumbles.

“But that’s not a no.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“I knew it! So? Who is he? Or she? Or they?”

Resigned, Cas takes a long sip of his drink and then scrubs at his face with both hands. “You know him, actually. Does the name Dean ring a bell?”

Charlie’s eyebrows hit her hairline. “Dean Smith?” Cas nods. “How the hell did you cross paths with  _ Dean Smith _ ?”

“He’s my sister’s neighbor, the one I'm cat-sitting for. And I screwed it up.” When Charlie doesn’t say anything, it should ring alarm bells in his brain, but he’s distracted. “I figured we could watch a few episodes of Salt and Burn and then one thing would lead to another, but no, apparently not.”

“You tried to Netflix and chill with my Dean?” Charlie asks, her face tightened up into a sympathetic squint. “Oof. How’d he take it?”

“He froze. Stiffened up, and not in the fun way, then ran.”

Charlie sighs. “Okay, look. I love the guy, we’ve been friends for years, but you don’t even know how deep in the closet he is. He’s told, like, me. And that’s it.”

Cas can feel his eyebrows trying to crawl off his face. “That might explain a few things.”

“You think?”

“And here I was entertaining the possibility that he was inconveniently heterosexual.”

Charlie snorts. “No, I can guarantee you on that one.” She paps the back of his arm with her hand. “Hey, this is good, though!”

“How is it good?”

“The fact that he was willing to hang out with you at all, that means he’s not totally without a pulse.”

Cas crosses his arms over his chest. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Charlie debates something internally for a moment, shoulders crawling up around her ears. “Look. He’s a total square, right?” Cas snorts and nods an affirmative. “Well, he didn’t used to be. Back when we met, he actually used to have fun once in a while. But then his dad got to him. Put the fear of God into him or something. Then it was all buttoned collars and pocket protectors from there on out, and absolutely no fooling around with anything or anybody. He even transferred to a different college for his last two years, and I had to track him down after graduation just to see how he was doing. I really hoped he would have escaped all that, but nope. Corporate shill all the way down.”

“At least he’s ditched the pocket protectors,” Cas says. “Nice as it is to rough up the polish, even I have standards.” Cas chews on this information for a few moments before the other shoe drops. “Wait. When you say no fooling around, you mean—”

“Scout’s honor. When we were freshman, he’d come to me all giddy and adorable every time he kissed a boy and liked it. I never heard of it going any further than that, and then—so, I guess I don’t have any  _ proof _ , but.”

“That  _ definitely _ explains a few things,” he says, blowing air between his lips. “So you think I should give up?”

“Are you kidding? I’ve been trying to get that kid laid for a literal decade!”

“But if he’s holding out for marriage or something—”

“It’s not that. He’s just scared. Trust me.”

“I’m not going to force or manipulate him into anything,” Cas says, his voice firm.

“What? Oh my god, I'm not suggesting—” Charlie waves her hands to clear the thought from the air. “Just don’t write him off so quickly. And don’t abandon him. He’s skittish, but—I dunno. I just want him to be happy.”

Cas considers. “So do I,” he says, surprised with the wistfulness that comes out with it. He does want Dean to be happy. Whether that means sleeping with him or not. And that is… somewhat surprising, actually.

Some kind of feeling reaches up to squeeze at his throat; he downs the last of his drink to try and dislodge it.

When he looks up, Charlie is watching him with shrewd curiosity.

“What?” he asks.

Charlie blinks her way back to innocence, belied by a shit-eating grin. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

Cas flicks a pickle at her.

~~

“What’s up, Deanaroonie? How’s my favorite junior regional sales associate corporate stooge?”

“That’s Mister Assistant Sales Manager to you, but nice try. And who’re you calling a stooge?”

“You, dummy. Hey, I have a proposition for you.”

“Shoot.”

“It’s time.”

“It’s time?”

“Your Queen calls to you, handmaiden! There’s an event on Saturday. You’re coming.”

“I’m what?”

“Don’t worry about garb, I’ve got you covered, and you will wear what I put you in.”

“Charlie—”

“Pleeeeeeeeease? I’ve been on a boat for almost a month and I need some good old-fashioned, home-brewed shenaniganary, and I miss you.”

“Aren’t we a little old to be playing make believe in a park?”

“Uh, speak for yourself.”

“You’re three months older than me.”

“Don’t care!”

“Also shenaniganary is not a word.”

“You’re coming, right?”

Dean can almost hear the pouting down the phone line, can picture the puppy dog eyes. He has missed her. And given the weirdness with Cas, the other option is probably… going to work.

“Yeah, sure, why not.”

Charlie’s excited squeal rings in his eardrums long after the call has ended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter's a doozie so hold onto your hats! See you next Thursday, friends <3


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! If you can believe it, my first time through this story, I didn't realize that they needed to go LARPing together at some point. Thankfully, that has been remedied. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> As always, big thanks to [Elanor](https://elanor-n-evermind.tumblr.com) for helping me through this.
> 
> The details of my version of Moondoor are a sort of moosh-together of what we see in the show with my own experiences with LARPing, mostly pirate-themed events in my local community. Plus some stuff I pulled out of my ass. More details in the end notes!

So help him, he’s wearing tights. 

“I look like an idiot,” he says to Charlie— _not_ whining, thank you very much. Just stating objective fact.

“Dean, you’re LARPing. Everyone looks like an idiot, that’s half the fun!”

He tugs at the leather vest which doesn’t quite sit right and shrugs his shoulders under a white tunic-y thing which he is trying very hard not to think of as a dress. No matter which way he tugs it, it bunches around the belt at his waist. “You don’t,” he mumbles.

“And that’s why I’m the Queen,” Charlie says, smug as she closes the clasp on her elegant swoop of a half-cloak and plants a gloved hand on the hilt of her sword. “Now turn around.”

“What? Why?” Dean asks, even as he does as he’s told.

Charlie tuts and gives him a skeptical hum. “Not bad. Here.” She steps closer and flips up the back of his tunic.

“Hey, watch the—”

Charlie grabs the back of his heavy duty hose and yanks.

Dean makes a noise like a frightened gerbil that he immediately vows never to admit to in public.

“There,” Charlie says, all self-satisfaction. “Can’t have a handmaiden with a saggy bum, now, can I?”

“A little warning would have been nice,” Dean grumps as he renegotiates the position of the family jewels.

The tent they’re in—if it can be called a tent—is a surprisingly elaborate affair draped in colorful hangings and decorated with shelves full of on-theme trinkets. It feels more like an actual Queen's ready room than the post-and-canvas structure it truly is, and even though Dean still can’t quite believe people go to this much effort just for a weekend event, he’s grateful for the headroom and the squishy carpet underfoot. 

A voice calls from outside. “Permission to enter?”

“Granted!” Charlie sings.

A striking woman ducks unter the front flap; Charlie’s jaw drops. “Oh my god, you actually came!”

The woman—tall, with dark hair and strong features—looks vaguely familiar, but Dean can’t place her, and she’s still wearing normal twenty-first-century clothing. She stops in her tracks. “Should I go?” she asks, not looking at all like she would actually go anywhere unless Charlie physically pushed her out of the park.

“No! No, uh. It’s fine.” Charlie rallies admirably, reaching for the straight-backed confidence that comes with her Queen’s garb. “You should know, however, that you are naked.”

The woman’s face breaks into an incredulous grin. “Oh, am I?”

Charlie goes bright pink. “Yes. Um. Dean, I’m sorry, but you’ve just been promoted.”

“What?”

“I have a new handmaiden, now. That is, if she’ll have me.”

The way the woman is eyeing Charlie, Dean has no doubts at all that she will.

“Right.” Dean clears his throat. “I’ll just see myself out.”

Neither woman looks at him or acknowledges his hasty retreat.

He ducks under the tent flap and emerges into another time. Oh sure, it’s just a big park on the edge of the city, and you can still see things like electric lamp posts, a concrete path winding its way through the center of the encampment, the chain-link baseball fence at the far end of the field. But everything in the immediate vicinity has been painted with the veneer of the fantastical. People stroll up and down the path in buckled boots, brocade gowns and corsets, velvet doublets and feathered caps. The nearest lamp post has wooden signs lashed to it with hempen twine pointing travelers toward the Battle Field, the Forbidden Forest, the Market Square, and the Kitchens. The structures that line the walkway are going to great lengths to disguise their true natures (carports, trailer beds, frames of pipe and plastic) as stonework inns, wooden huts, and lavish pavilions. 

He doesn't feel quite so stupid now that he's out in the open and in good company. If anything, his borrowed outfit seems plain by comparison. Dean takes some comfort in the fact that no matter how stupid he feels, at least he doesn't have to contend with jagged rubber teeth, and he isn't pretending to do magic with a whittled stick and a sack full of sand bags.

At loose ends, Dean wanders toward the Market Square, which turns out to be a loose circle of vendor stalls. Some of the stalls are whimsical collections of clothing and jewelry, cutlery and crockery—all with the same fantastical bent as what Dean sees on the folks milling about—but some seem less like shops and more like antique collections that happen to be for sale. There also seems to be a disproportionate number of leatherworkers, and some of their wares make Dean's head swirl. Suddenly, he's looking at the elf maiden with the elaborate collar around her neck in a whole new light. 

He moves on quickly from the leather workers. At the far end of the circle, a man in woolen robes is embarking on a complicated patter, calling himself Hadron the Collider and hawking a variety of cleverly useless trinkets, each with its own tale to be told. Dean finds himself wanting to buy an Evil Spork, if for no other reason than that the guy is working his ass off, here, and deserves to get paid for the show.

“Hello, Dean,” comes a familiar voice from behind him. Dean swings around, and his heart climbs up his throat. “Nice tights.”

Cas makes quite a sight. Dean never thought he’d be attracted to a man in a poofy shirt, but somehow, on Cas, in this context, it works. _Really_ works. Maybe it’s the combination with the very tight black trousers tucked into knee-high black leather boots. Or maybe it’s the—

“Dude. Are you wearing a corset?” Dean asks with a tongue as dry as sand.

Cas looks down at the royal-blue brocade of the vest-style corset encasing his body. “I’m hardly the only one,” he says.

Dean glances around. “Yeah, but most of the others are women.”

Cas lifts an eyebrow at him, which does funny things to Dean’s britches. Damn these tights. “Do we need to have the gender expectations conversation now? Besides, men wore corsets, too.”

“They did?”

“Verily,” Cas says, and Dean snorts. “Right up until the industrial revolution.” He turns and starts to amble along the vague circle of stalls, and that’s when Dean notices his ears.

He’s wearing elf ears. Sort of. Not the kinda creepy rubber points that so many have spirit-gummed into place. No, these are delicately wrought silver filigree that cradles the ear like a cupped hand. It follows the curve and rises up to a perfect point nestled in his dark hair. There are even tiny sparkling beads decorating the wire, the same royal blue as his corset. It’s understated and gorgeous and Dean is weak at the knees. Over some fucking ear ornaments. What is wrong with him?

“So,” he says, casual as you please. “You’re an… elf?”

“That’s right,” Cas says. “High Elven Grand Vazir Mikhail Krushnic, at your service.” Cas makes a low bow, which gives Dean a totally unnecessary view of the lacing down the back of his corset and the shapeliness of his waist. He tugs at his own baggy tunic. Cas gives him a wink and a smirk on his way up, which does not help matters at all. “And to whom am I speaking?”

“Uh.” Dean blanks. “I’m still just Dean, I guess.”

“Be careful. Go around saying that, and your faire name will be Justine before you have a chance to object.”

Dean laughs. “Charlie already calls me her handmaiden, so I guess that’s fitting.”

“Does she, now?” Cas cocks that stupid eyebrow again, ear point flashing in the sun.

“Yeah, that's been her running gag for years. Although,” Dean says, side-stepping a vigorous juggling act between two lanky men in jester hats, “I may have lost my place there.”

“So soon after setting foot into Moondoor?”

“Yeah, some lady showed up and Charlie said I was promoted. I didn’t get a proper introduction, though. They seemed a little distracted.”

Cas throws his head back and laughs; Dean definitely doesn’t commit the sight to memory. “That was probably Dorothy.”

“From the cruise, right?”

“Yes.” They’ve looped back around to Hadron the Collider again. A group of teenagers with face paint and fairy wings seem to be buying up his supply of Evil Sporks. “I’m surprised she showed. I don’t think Charlie actually intended to invite her.”

“What makes you say that?”

“It’s a little unsettling to show your true colors like this to a newly minted romantic interest.”

“Doesn’t seem to bother you.” The words slip right out between Dean’s teeth. His body flushes hot, then cold, and he can feel Cas looking at him sideways. “It’s still super weird that you and Charlie know each other,” he says in a rush, just a little too loud.

Cas doesn’t respond for a second; Dean sweats bullets in the direct summer sun. Then, “Yes, small world, isn’t it?”

“Small world.”

They watch Hadron the Collider finish his patter and collect cash from the gaggle of elated teenagers, then pull more Evil Sporks out of the folds of his cloak and onto the barrel serving as his table. The silence itches under Dean’s chain mail.

“Well,” Cas says from slightly closer than before. “I suppose if we’re both here to see Charlie, and she’s distracted by her new handmaiden, we’ll just have to make our own entertainment, won’t we?”

Dean trips over his own boots. They’re not even walking, but somehow he manages it.

Luckily, he’s saved from having to come up with an appropriate answer by a man in bright livery stepping up onto an overturned wooden crate. “Hear ye, hear ye!” he cries, and heads turn in his direction from all around the circular square. “Uh, yeah—um.” He clears his throat and unrolls a tattered-edged fabric scroll, which, Dean can see, has a plain piece of paper taped to it. “All ye gentle knights—of all genders—um—Let It Be Known that the Festival Games shall commence upon the Battle Field at two of the clock!” He shifts his feet on the crate and glances around at the loose assemblage. “Games shall be played in pairs and the final winner decided by Boffer Battle. The reward shall be Riches Beyond Measure!”

“Riches,” Dean scoffs. “I bet it’s chocolate coins.”

“Shh,” Cas shushes.

“If ye wish—wishes—wish—to test thine mettle in challenges of strength, cunning, teamwork, and valor, um—” he drops the hand holding his scroll. “Uh, just go sign up at the tech tent, and please, have a buddy already, we are not doing random placement again this year, that was a huge pain in the ass. Okay? Thanks. Uh. Yeah. Have fun, guys.” He hops off the crate to a smattering of hoots and applause, looking relieved.

For a few seconds, Dean determinedly does not meet Cas’s eye. Then, when he does, he finds he’s already being looked at. In unison, they share a mutual shrug of ‘why the hell not?’

~~

The “Battle Field” turns out to be the baseball diamond. The chain-link fence behind home base is hung with pennants and tapestries, and the peeling wooden bleachers are crowded with a far more elaborately dressed crowd than your average Little League game. There’s some kind of obstacle course set up in the outfield, a bunch of wooden barrels and flags on posts; between the bases, there’s a few wide, rough circles marked out in rope. Dean and Castiel are amongst a handful of pairs assembled for the games. 

Charlie holds court in the bleachers with Dorothy on her arm. Dorothy looks smug in a borrowed vest that’s a little tight across the chest and leather trousers that lace up the sides. Charlie looks a lot more relaxed than she did earlier. She gestures Dean over before the games begin.

“So,” she says, a gleeful grin on her face as Dean leans close. “Are you having a blast or what?”

Dean can’t entirely hide his smile. “I dunno,” he says.

Charlie slaps his arm. “Yes you are, come on!”

“Yeah, okay, you got me. This is fun.”

“Bet you wish you’d done this with me years ago,” she says, entirely too smug.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Dean demures, and Charlie smacks his arm.

“Better watch out. You know I decide the final winner, right?”

“Do you?”

Dorothy chimes in: “Perks of being the Queen.”

Charlie beams.

“You know if you pick me or Cas, people are going to cry favoritism.”

“Well, then you’ll just have to crush the competition fair and square, now, won’t you?”

Before Dean can get very far on responding, a man in striped pajamas with a curled moustache stands up on a bale of straw at the pitcher’s mound. “Alright you landlubbers!” he yells, gruff, and way more committed to his character than the poor guy who’d made the initial announcement. “Gather ‘round! The games are about to begin!”

“Go get ‘em, Tiger,” Charlie says without a trace of irony. Dean trots back to where Cas is doing a performative little spine-twist stretch.

Cas has removed his corset and the ears. Dean bemoans the loss, but it's probably for the best. At Charlie’s recommendation, Dean is down to the belted tunic and tights and feels even more like he’s wearing a dress than he did before. Whatever. At least he can move freely. 

The first couple of games are team-based, splitting the couples up onto oddly matched groups for tug of war. Dean and Cas end up at the front, and Dean manages to haul out a victory there, even distracted as he is by Cas’s determined grimace and straining, wiry arms. 

Next is a relay game involving the donning and removing of lots of over-sized, vaguely period-appropriate clothing. Dean is glad they’re still on teams and he doesn’t have to think about wearing the same clothes as Cas, even for a moment, even if they are slightly moth-eaten and ridiculous.

Cas’s team wins.

“You had enough stripping for one day, Cas?” Dean jibes as he and Cas reconvene at a brief break for water before the pair challenges commence.

Cas doesn’t look amused. “Careful,” he says, sipping on a bottle of water that’s not even trying to be a wineskin. “We're about to be tied together and told to run an obstacle course. Do you know how easy it would be to run you into one of those barrels?”

Dean’s belly heats like a boiling cauldron. “Not as easy as you think,” he says without much conviction.

That deadly eyebrow climbs. “Try me.”

Dean’s still floundering for an answer when one of the organizers—a busty self-proclaimed wench—strides up to them with two lengths of soft-looking rope in her hands. “Have a seat, fellas,” she says, gesturing to a bench behind them. “Your time has come.”

Cas cozies right up to Dean on the bench, scooting until they're hip to hip, pressed tight from ankle to shoulder. Dean fumbles for a place to rest his arm that isn’t across Cas’s back but ultimately bites the bullet and picks a spot on his shoulder to grip. In response, Cas’s arm sneaks around his waist, settling on the soft dip just over his hip. Those two spots of contact vibrate in Dean’s perception like a tuning fork. 

The woman kneels before them, lewd smirk and extravagant cleavage totally wasted on Dean. She bends low to cinch the ropes tight around their ankles and knees; her hands move quick and confident. Dean’s mind flashes back to the leather workers and the collars. Damn. Cas wasn’t kidding about nerds.

Once they’re properly bound, they have to make their way to the starting line. There is no escaping the solid press of Cas’s body against his. He can feel the flexing of his muscular thigh and hip, the shifting of his weight. Cas’s hair keeps tickling his neck, his ear, his jaw. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think it was deliberate. 

Cas seems hardly to notice. He’s focused on keeping his balance, arm searching up and down Dean’s side for the best place to rest his hand as they zig zag toward the starting line.

All the pairs line up between first and second base, staring down the barrel-and-flag obstacle course. Cas leans into him; Dean leans back. Just finding their equilibrium. Just to make sure they don’t fall over, obviously.

The bell clangs.

They spring forward. 

Their strides match perfectly. The shifting of Cas’s muscles easily telegraphs where he wants Dean to go. Left side of the barrel, right side of the flag, oops, don’t run into the tall fellow who’s nearly carrying his diminutive partner. They move as one, as if they share a brain. It’s far more satisfying than Dean had ever expected.

As they stride across the finish line leagues before anybody else, Dean could swear he catches a knowing glint in Charlie’s grin.

~~

The wheelbarrow race is a contentious one before it even starts.

“Uh-uh. No way.”

“You have the shoulders for it, Dean.”

“I—okay, look, but—I’m gonna break my neck.”

“Don’t you trust me?”

“I don’t wanna die wearing tights, man.”

“I thought they were hose.”

“Shut up.”

“I can’t help but notice your lack of concern for my well-being.”

“You—you do yoga, right? You’re all limber ‘n’ stuff.”

“So?”

“So, you’ll bounce. Or whatever. Tuck and roll, you know?”

Castiel’s eye roll is a full-body affair. “This is ridiculous. Rock, Paper, Scissors.”

“We’re going to play a game about playing a game?”

“Rock, Paper, Scissors is hardly a game—you know what? Just throw.”

Cas holds up his fist over his open palm, jaw set, and Dean sighs a long-suffering and weary sigh. He’s playing it up, and he knows it, but it’s against his pride to give in without a fight. So he holds his hands up and throws scissors.

Cas throws rock.

“Aw, man,” Dean groans, and bends to remove his boots. Dean can’t remember the last time he was barefoot outside his own home. The grass is prickly, but the dusty dirt pleasantly smooth under his oversensitive feet. 

“Don’t worry,” Cas says, leaning close with a hand on Dean’s shoulder and a low, conspiratorial voice. “I’ll be gentle.”

With that— _that_ —ringing in his ears, Dean gets down on his hands and knees. He tries desperately not to think too hard about anything as they arrange him on his palms with his ankles suspended in Cas’s sturdy hands, legs spread apart just enough to get his blood racing in the wrong direction. 

Cas doesn’t waver under his weight. Strong. 

“Ready?” Cas says from behind. 

Dean’s elbows give a little shake, his palms sweaty in the grass. “I guess,” he says, and swallows.

“Right hand first,” Cas says.

“Try not to plough me over,” Dean grunts. His shoulders are already feeling the strain.

He can feel more than hear Cas laughing at that, and he firms up his legs, pressing his ankles into Cas’s palms.

Eyes on the prize.

At the ring of the bell, two of the other pairs immediately fall over. Dean relies on that kinesthetic sense of Cas’s body to tell him where to go, when to lift his hand, and amazingly, it works. He doesn’t fall. Cas doesn’t go any faster than he can move his arms. The other team that didn’t fall in the first two seconds makes it about halfway before the girl gives a yelp and collapses to the ground in a giggling heap.

Leaving Dean and Cas to score another victory.

“Dude!” Dean crows at the other end of the field, pumping one dust-covered fist in the air. “We are _awesome_ at this!” 

“Yes, we make a good team,” Cas says, bright-eyed, grinning, a little sweaty. Dean swipes at his own brow with his sleeve.

“What’s next?” he asks, heart still pounding.

The final challenge is a direct face-off: Boffer Battle. Dean picks a long “sword”—just PVC pipe wrapped in foam and duct tape—and doesn’t feel nearly as stupid about it as he would have even a few hours ago. He swings it side to side to get a feel for its weight while Cas and the other pairs select their weapons. 

Once they are all standing in their designated circles, the master of ceremonies goes over some basic safety rules. 

“Okay, we get it, no concussions,” Dean says, gripping his hilt tight.

“Eager to get going, Dean?” Cas asks, dry and intense as only he can be.

“You know it.”

“Go, Dean!” Charlie’s voice cries from the sidelines. “Take him down!”

“You know why she’s rooting for you, right?” Cas asks as they circle each other slowly, waiting for the ring of the bell.

“Because she likes me better?”

“No,” Cas says. “Because you’re the underdog.”

“Says you.”

“Says four-time boffer champion of the Moondoor All-Regional Free-For-All, yes,” Cas says, his hackles clearly rising, his eyes sparkling a heavenly blue under the cloudless sky.

Dean’s stomach flutters.

He is so boned.

The bell rings.

Dean goes in hot, figuring his best option is to catch Cas off guard. It doesn’t work. Cas deflects his initial blow and neatly side-steps his second to catch him low in the thighs with the flat of his boffer.

“First blood!” calls the ref keeping an eye on them.

“Dammit,” Dean mutters. 

He tries a sneakier approach, watching Cas like a hawk with his tongue between his teeth. Cas circles, making no move toward him. “Don’t bite that off,” Cas says. “That would really be a shame.”

Dean has no idea what to make of that, but he sucks his tongue back into his mouth. “Screw you.”

Cas tilts his head. “Is that an offer?”

Dean’s so distracted by that that he doesn’t even notice the way Cas darts in until it’s almost too late. He parries—barely—a high slice and a quick sweep, pedaling backwards under Cas’s onslaught before sliding sideways just before he steps right out of the ring. That gives him an opening—he makes a quick slap at Cas’s backside and gets him right under the ass. Cas yelps, spins around a moment too late to protect his hindquarters, a snarl on his upper lip. Dean doesn’t even try to pretend it’s not sexy; he leers, gripping his hilt in both hands.

“You like that, huh? Four-time champion, my ass.”

“You’ll pay for that,” Cas growls.

“Promises, promises.”

Cas’s snarl flares into a grin, and Dean feels like he could crow. Instead, he taunts him with a playful little wag of his tongue and a ‘come and get me’ gesture.

Cas comes and gets him. It’s a long, slow swing that Dean dodges with apparent ease, but he changes angles abruptly at the end to catch him in the shoulder. Shit. If he hadn’t been so cocky, he could have parried that.

“Come on, Dean! You can take him!” Charlie’s voice rings out.

Cas is smirking again, composure regained, boffer held at the ready. Dean watches, waits. Lets Cas come to him, ready for anything.

But Cas doesn’t come in. They circle, eyes locked, muscles tense. Dean fights the urge to look away because, if he does that, that’s surely when Cas will strike. But the longer he stares into those crystal-blue eyes, the more hypnotized he feels. The more he finds himself memorizing the tousled sweep of his hair, chocolate brown with the summer sun, the shadow of stubble on his strong jaw. The way his large, nimble fingers grip the hilt of his boffer and the way his billowy shirt gaps open at the throat to reveal a glimpse of collarbone, shining with sweat.

“You gonna make a move, or—”

Cas lunges. A quick, heated scuffle, a test of muscular strength as their boffers lock close to the hilt. They grimace, straining against each other eye-to-eye and toe-to-toe, and then, all at once, Dean’s sword slips from his grip. Cas barrels bodily into him at the sudden loss of resistance; Dean goes down on his ass and then flat on his back. Cas lands squarely on top of him, legs tangled.

They both burst out laughing.

“Okay, okay,” Dean moans weakly. “You win, I forfeit.”

“Well, that’s no fun,” Cas says, leaning over him, hands planted in the dirt by Dean’s ears.

All of Dean’s blood races south. He thinks—he prays—that Cas is positioned in such a way that he won’t immediately notice any inconvenient swelling.

But he has Cas’s weight on him. He’s on his back with Cas leaning over him, a masculine silhouette against a blue-sky backdrop.

Dean should be trying harder to escape.

He should.

He doesn’t.

Cas reaches a few feet to the left of Dean’s shoulder, the shift of weight bringing a heated heaviness to all the areas of touch between their bodies. Dean sucks in air and clenches, about to start squirming when Cas comes back with his boffer sword in hand.

He holds it aloft, brings the soft foam tip down directly into the center of Dean’s chest.

“Coup de grace,” he says. “I win.”

Dean’s head thumps back on the ground. He closes his eyes.

“You are such an asshole.”

Then Cas’s weight lifts off of him, the air chill against the pooled heat where they’d been touching. Dean opens his eyes to see Cas’s hand held out in offering. 

He takes it, palm to palm, letting Cas haul him to his feet.

Cas doesn’t let go for a second. Just takes half a step closer and keeps his face completely straight as he says, “You are what you eat.”

~~

“Told you they were chocolate coins,” Dean brags, unwrapping another and tossing it in his mouth. He wads up the gold foil and chucks it in the iron fire pit in front of them.

“That’s littering,” Cas says, letting a plume of smoke escape his wide-open mouth. Dean relaxes into the sling-backed chair he’s found for himself and doesn’t even try not to watch Cas’s lips. It’s a lost cause at this point. Besides, he’s on his second tankard of ‘Elven wine,’ which, near as he can tell, is boxed moscato and Malibu. His limbs feel warm and loose. Somewhere on the other side of the park, a drum circle has been playing since sunset while twilight sweeps over them like a deep-blue cloak studded with silver stars. Cas is wearing his ears again; they glint in the firelight, like his eyes. 

“No, it’s not,” he says. “It’s not like it’s going anywhere but the ashes.”

Cas shifts his bare feet a little closer to the fire to warm his toes. Dean’s not sure why or when he’d lost his footwear, but he’d apparently forgotten some ‘cardinal rule’ of cosplay and put his corset back on before his boots. Charlie had mocked him mercilessly for that one, and the upshot was Dean’s been staring at his bare feet for an entire afternoon, getting dustier and dustier as the day progressed. Something about watching Cas run around barefoot on the badly beaten grass, summer-dry even with the recent rain, has Dean feeling… fond. That’s the best word for it. Fond.

“Maybe so,” Cas says. “But think of the people who have to clean out the ashes. Maybe they wanted to use this ash in their garden, and they have to dig through it to remove your chunks of melted metal.”

“Pff,” Dean scoffs, then tosses the little mesh bag over to Cas. “Here. They're your spoils anyway.”

Cas catches the bag and delicately unwraps a large coin. Dean watches him place it in his mouth and savor it as if it were the finest delicacy rather than a skinny disk of mediocre milk chocolate. 

Dean hasn't even stopped to consider the calories all evening. Not when he drank his first tankard of wine, not when he and Cas, Charlie and Dorothy shared skewered meat and toasted bread with cheese at the Kitchens. A part of his brain tries to yell about it now, but it’s muted, distant. Everything about his normal life feels very far away.

Cas chews slowly, staring into the fire and then up at the stars. He’s half-lit in the warm light, half deep in shadow. Dean leans back in the creaky chair and sips at his sweetened wine.

“Hey, Cas?” he asks.

Cas turns.

“What’s your deal, anyway?”

Cas frowns at him, a furrow of brow, and doesn’t answer that frankly intrusive question.

“No, I mean, seriously. Who are you?”

“I’m High-Elven Grand Vazir—”

“Yeah, I get that, but, like. You’re…” He gestures at the entirety of Castiel, and his words fall short. “I dunno.”

“Would you care to start with a more specific question?”

“Smartass. Like, where do you live when you’re not house-sitting? Do you have any other family? What did you do last summer? That kinda shit.”

Cas tucks his little wooden travel pipe back into a discrete pouch on his belt. “Why do you want to know?” he asks, looking back at the fire.

Dean shrugs. “Just making conversation.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Cas says, leaning forward and rubbing his palms together, like a prospector in winter.

Dean just stares at him. “Okay, cryptic.” Sips more wine.

Cas tosses a glare over his shoulder at Dean, dark, backlit by flame. 

Silence reigns. They listen to the drum circle, to the crickets in the Forbidden Forest, the merriment of their fellow revelers. Dean wonders vaguely where Charlie has gone.

He’s almost done with his wine by the time Cas speaks again.

“I don’t live anywhere,” he says.

Dean’s heart thuds against his belly. “Huh?”

“I have my van,” Cas says, and if he were writing, his pen would have gone through the paper. “It takes me everywhere I need to go.”

“You’re homeless?” It’s a gut reaction that Dean’s not proud of, a little too loud, and he wants to roll it back down his throat the moment it comes out. “Sorry, I just—”

Cas’s glare is withering, thorns around a tender vine. “I am not homeless. I said I have my van. And I don’t need your judgement.”

“I’m not judging, I just—”

Cas closes his eyes and sags back in his own sling-backed chair, suddenly weary. “Yes, you are. This is why I wasn’t going to tell you.”

He’s not. Not really. He just doesn’t like the idea of Cas making do with a hard, narrow seat for a bed or getting woken up by the cops for trying to park somewhere. “Hey—” he reaches out and touches Cas’s knee. “Thank you. I’m sorry if—I dunno. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s my life, I’ll live it how I want.”

Dean wants to challenge that, but this time he does the smart thing and swallows his words.

Unfortunately, nothing else wells up to fill the vacancy between them.

“You have questions,” Cas asks, pointedly examining his fingernails.

“Uh.”

“I know you do. Just ask.”

Dean sorts through his mental deck of cards to see which one falls out first. “What about your job at the youth center? I mean.”

“You thought all homeless people were unemployed drifters?”

Dean shrugs.

“It’s part-time work, at best, and the youth center is not exactly drowning in cash. It pays enough for gas, a gym membership, a PO box, and food. That’s about it.”

“Huh.” Dean mulls that over. "Gym membership?” 

“They have showers.”

“Oh.” Dean picks at his cuticles. “So that’s why you’re so, uh—” he trails off.

“Clean?” There’s a knife’s edge of bitterness in the word, barely hidden in velvet.

Dean doesn’t quite laugh. “I was gonna go with ripped,” he says.

Cas does laugh at that, just a tight little smile and puff of air, but it loosens something in Dean’s chest to see it. “I suppose.”

They lapse into quiet again. The drum circle is still going strong, now with occasional whoops and hollers; Dean wonders if he’s going to have to find a tent to sleep in, or if he’s going to be able to get home by himself.

Which leads him to wonder where Cas is crashing.

And then his brain spins off into fantasies of crawling into a tent with Cas, vague shapes moving in the dark, that drum circle beating out a primal rhythm while they slide out of their ridiculous clothing.

Here, far away from everything in his real life, it doesn’t seem quite so impossible.

“Dean,” Cas says, startling Dean out of his daydream. “I want to apologize.”

“What for?”

“For the other weekend.”

It takes a second, but then it thunks into place, what he’s talking about. “Oh. Forget it,” he says. He’s certainly been trying to. Sort of. 

“It was presumptuous of me. I thought—well. It doesn’t matter what I thought. The point is, I had the wrong idea, and I hope you don’t hold it against me. You have my sincerest apologies if my actions made you uncomfortable.”

Dean slugs the last of his wine out of his tankard; it almost goes up his sinuses. “Uh.” He pinches his nose, eyes watering. All he has to say is ‘yeah, sure, whatever,’ and this conversation will be over.

What comes out instead is: “What did you think?”

Cas doesn’t answer until Dean removes his hand from his face and looks back at him. “Pardon?”

“What made you—you know.”

Cas looks at him, calculating, curious. “I thought you were interested in me.”

Dean clenches his fingers, white-knuckled on the handle of his tankard. Firelight burns into his eyes.

“Was I wrong?” Cas asks, low and careful.

Dean swallows. Chews his lips. Doesn’t answer.

“What are you so afraid of?” Cas asks.

Dean chokes, his heart slamming against his ribs. “Uh. I dunno. Climate change?”

“No, Dean. Here, now. This. What scares you so badly about this?”

“Uh.”

Dean stares. Cas stares back, expressionless, motionless. The fire pops; Dean doesn’t blink. He can see the shadow of Cas’s stubble, can count his eyelashes, can see the moment his lips fall just ever so slightly open, the pink wet shine inside almost obscene.

He licks his own lips.

Cas watches him do it. 

Dean surges to his feet. “It’s late,” he says. “I should—uh, I should go—” 

Cas stands too, and suddenly, they are extremely close. The wine, the firelight, the heat and strangeness of the day, they all whirl in Dean’s head; his legs feel like he’s standing in quicksand. Cas stares at him with a frown that turns down the corners of his whole face.

“Alright,” Cas says. 

He starts to walk away.

“No, wait, Cas—” Dean lunges, his fingers catching the cotton of his poofy sleeve, but no skin. 

Cas whirls back anyway. “Make up your mind, Dean,” he says.

“I can’t,” Dean says, panting like he’s running another three-legged race. “I’m not—”

“If you can’t even admit it to yourself, then we can’t have this conversation.”

“No, I am, I can!” Dean says desperately, and the words are like fire on his tongue. “I just.” He swallows and forces the rest of the words out over hot coals. “I’ve never done—anything. You know.”

Cas doesn’t even blink. “That’s fine. I can work with that. If you want me to. But you have to want me to.”

A strange sensation is flooding through Dean’s limbs. It’s like he’s dizzy in his arms and legs, like the world is turning him upside down. “Yeah, I. I do. I just need time,” he hears himself say as if from the bottom of a well.

Cas nods, a smile tugging up the corners of his lips. Lips that were made to be kissed under starlight. Lips that look so soft, lips that hold secrets just waiting for Dean to be ready to hear them. 

“I’m glad to hear it, Dean,” he says, reaching out to cup one hand around Dean’s arm just above the elbow. “We have time.”

Dean could do it.

He could do it right now.

He could find Cas’s lips with his own and try— _something._ He could—

“There you guys are!”

Charlie’s tipsy voice shatters the little shell around them. Dean springs back, not sure when he’d leaned in, as Charlie and Dorothy pick their way through the chairs around the fire pit toward them. 

He’s never been less happy to see Charlie.

“We've been looking all over for you! The Shadow Orcs are hosting a burlesque show in the Forbidden Forest. You in?” 

Dean hesitates. There’s a tether of tension tying him to Cas now, like a rubber band. He glances at him to find Cas already looking back, eyebrows up.

Cas turns to Charlie and asks a question Dean hadn’t had the guts to even think of: “Girlesque or boylesque?” 

“Both, and a little in between! Lotta gender fuckery in them Shadow Orcs. Come on, don’t be wet blankets!”

Cas is smirking when he turns back to Dean. “Well?”

Dean hedges, but ultimately, the encouraging lift to Cas’s eyebrows shoves him into the pool. “What the hell,” he says, “it’s Saturday.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're curious about Cas's ear cuffs, there are many many artists on Etsy who make things of this nature, and they are *gorgeous.* [Here's just one example.](https://www.etsy.com/listing/512928306/elven-ears-a-pair-earcuffs-elf-ears?ref=shop_home_active_9&frs=1&cns=1) Also, if you'd like some examples of the kind of corset Cas is wearing...... [Be my guest.](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/475212457242263563/746493676816957510/7.jpg) [Enjoy.](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/475212457242263563/744627661019807816/1.jpg)
> 
> Many, many things in this chapter are drawn directly from my own (pirate-themed) eventing community. The vendor circle with the suspicious prominence of leatherwork, the field games (though the Pirate Olympics were never this well-organized), the drum circle that goes on all night, the burlesque shows, "boots before corset," the home-mixed alcoholic concoctions... But my favorite shout-out in this story is to a truly excellent wizard by the name of Hadron the Collider. Sadly, he is no longer with us, but his spirit lives on in many an Evil Spork, goblin's ear dice pouch, and two-stone-and-a-bone talisman of virility. (Yes, I own all of these.) He was a clever, clever fellow, and a hell of a showman, and to him I raise a glass.
> 
> Anyway, commence wailing at Charlie now, probably xD


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to [Elanor-n-evermind](https://elanor-n-evermind.tumblr.com</a) for the beta reading! I now know what a gerund is ^___^
> 
> Time to find out just how thin those walls really are >:)

It’s a Sunday morning when Castiel learns first-hand just how thin the walls are.

Dean is in the shower when Cas wakes up. He can hear the water streaming through the pipes in the walls. This happens most mornings, and it’s one of the things that had given him the idea to have a little fun with Dean. Something inside him shrivels up all dark and burnt when he thinks about that now, but at the time, he hadn’t known any better. Dean had just been some hot square he’d wanted to fuck with a little, knock down a peg or two—

Okay, poor choice of phrasing.

And he doesn’t really feel like lying here analyzing what, exactly, has changed, so he throws off the blankets and stumbles toward the bathroom. A shower actually sounds heavenly.

Cas lets his mind drift as he stands under the spray, but it doesn’t make it very far. No farther than this shower’s mirror image, to the man standing just a few feet away, equally naked. 

Closing his eyes, he lets himself picture it. He’s seen Dean wet and nearly nude, and the sight had haunted his fantasies for days. Now, he thinks of him in the warm, steamy sauna of his shower stall, relaxed and pink-skinned, lathered in body wash that smells like Old Spice or whatever certified masculine aroma he preferred. 

He’d be bedroom-eyed, come-hither, coy but confident. Dean knows he’s attractive, but he still has that edge of inexperienced enthusiasm. It’s such an enticing cocktail.

A muffled groan startles Cas out of his daydream, and he realizes he’s been “washing” between his legs for far too long. His cock is plump and eager in his hand, but that moan did not come from him.

It comes again, and now that he’s got his ears open, he can just pick out a rhythmic _splish_ of water, which could be from Dean washing himself, or it could be— 

With a bite of a curse, Cas turns into the spray to wash off the soap, then grabs his own dick and leans face-first against the tile. He feels a spare ripple of shame as he presses his ear to the wall, but it’s quickly washed over by the heat of his hard cock. He can’t hear much, but the idea of it is more than enough. He closes his eyes and imagines that Dean is kneeling in front of him, that gorgeous face turned up, water beading on his freckle-spackle cheeks and his mile-long eyelashes, his perfect cupid’s-bow lips. He pictures Dean’s cock hanging heavy between his thighs as he kneels, pictures him tentatively reaching out for Cas’s, a question tender on his lips— _“Can I?”_

“Yes,” Cas groans, pushing his cock through his fist. He wants to watch Dean’s lips stretch wide around his cock, wants to bury his hands in his wet hair and push as deep as he can go, wants to watch Dean learn how to take it. Wants to see that beautiful visage painted with his release, or feel Dean swallow around him, taking _everything—_

There’s a thump from the other side of the wall, then a high-pitched, prolonged whine that cuts right through the sound of the water and Cas’s thoughts. Jesus, he sounds broken, and he must be leaning right against the wall, too, face to face with Cas and only a few inches of tile and drywall between them.

“Come on,” Cas murmurs, breath fogging on the tile, working his cock in hard, fast pulls. “Come on, come for me, Dean.”

And though there’s absolutely no way he could have heard him, no matter how shoddy the construction, he does.

A thump, a shout, a gasping groan. Castiel’s eyes slam closed again, and there’s his Dean, kneeling at Castiel’s feet and painting his own fist and belly white, brow perfectly crinkled, curling over himself in helpless bliss. Castiel’s orgasm hits him like a riptide pulling him under. He comes all over those perfect cheeks, lips, tongue, chin, comes in strong pulses against the shower wall, comes so hard his knees buckle under him and he nearly falls to the floor. One knee cracks against the tile, a dull spike of pain before he’s even finished shaking out his pleasure.

Castiel is still trying to get his breath back when he hears the adjacent shower switch off. His own is still beating down, starting to turn cool and refreshing on his overheated skin.

He finishes quickly, sluicing the come from the wall and the remnants of shampoo from his hair.

As he towels off, a weird kind of anticipation buzzes under his skin. Ripples of his pleasure linger as he slips into soft, balloony pants. Usually, orgasm just leaves him feeling sated, but today he feels energized, like he’s plugged into some live circuit. The feeling follows him down the stairs and through the motions of starting coffee for the morning.

While the coffee maker is bubbling, he hears Dean’s knock on the door; a fresh jolt of whatever energy this is tingles under his tongue as he doesn’t-quite-rush to open it.

Dean’s dressed in running gear, obscenely tight shorts and a tank top invented purely for Castiel’s torment. His hair is still damp; Cas knows his own is too. His lips and cheeks are oddly pink, eyes sparkling in the early-morning sunshine. Cas’s cock gives a near-painful twinge, way too soon to start paying attention again, but it sure as hell tries. He’d known, he’d heard, but to see the bald-faced evidence right in front of him like this—

“Hey, Cas,” Dean says, and his gaze takes a detour over Cas’s bare chest. Two, actually. The first is quick and furtive. The second, deliberately lingering.

Good boy, Cas thinks, letting himself puff his chest up just a little for Dean’s benefit. Let yourself look.

“Hello, Dean.”

“Uh.” Dean’s so adorably tongue-tied, Cas has to force a grin off his face. “I, uh—just wondered if you wanted to hang out tonight. Later.”

Cas’s lungs leap into his mouth. It’s a stupid reaction. “Hm,” he says, pretending to think. “I don’t know. I’ll have to check against my calendar full of cannabis consumption and watching Netflix by myself.”

Dean snorts. “Smartass.” 

“I suppose your company does sound preferable to creating chaos in Anna’s spice collection.”

“Okay. Good. Uh.” Dean starts backing up, almost tripping down the stairs of his porch. “See you later, then?”

“Dean.”

Dean looks up from his graceless retreat.

Entirely nonchalant, not a care in the world, Cas leans against the door with his arms crossed and asks, “Do you always go for your run _after_ you shower?”

It’s entirely worth it. The way Dean’s whole face and neck flush like he’s been dropped in boiling water. “I—you heard that, I guess?” Dean asks, swiping a hand over his face.

Cas can’t think of an appropriately pithy response, so he just throws him a gratuitous wink. “Enjoy,” he says, and dips back into the house before either of them spontaneously combust.

~~

When Castiel steps through Dean’s front door later that day, he’s reasonably certain of what to expect. Dean’s half of the duplex is an exact mirror image of Anna’s, down to the hardwood floors and the kitchen cupboards, but where Anna’s decorative style is ‘boho chic, heavy on the chic,’ Dean seems to have gone for ‘minimalist’ and wound up with ‘Ikea Bland.’ Castiel isn’t surprised by the lack of art or pictures on the walls—the only decoration is a couple of photos of trees and lighthouses which were probably stock photos that came with the frames. There are a couple of succulents that turn out to be fake and, curiously, an empty vase with a sunflower on it. At a guess, Castiel would say that was a gift.

What Castiel did not expect was to find no actual furniture in the living room.

“Yeah, sorry, this turned into my workout space,” Dean says as Cas blinks down at an all-in-one resistance machine parked in front of a TV where his mind tells him there ought to be a couch.

“That can’t be comfortable,” he says. He’s trying not to let anything show on his face—he was really hoping for a couch and all the opportunities that come with that—but he does feel more than a little out of place in his most voluminous lounging pants, which happen to be bright magenta, and so large in the leg, Dean could fit in here with him with room to spare. He hadn’t bothered with shoes, considering that Dean’s door was barely four steps away.

He also, maybe, shouldn’t have sucked down that joint so fast.

“Care for something to drink?” Dean asks.

“Whatever’s on tap,” Cas says, easing himself onto a tall barstool at the kitchen island. Dean stands on the other side of it, fiddling with a couple of shot glasses.

“I’m making manhattans,” Dean says, too quickly. Nervous or excited, Cas can’t tell. Very likely both. “It’s like a martini, but with whiskey and a cherry instead of gin and an olive.”

“So… absolutely nothing like a martini,” Cas says drily.

Dean’s eyes roll skyward. “Yeah, well, they’re made the same. Dingus.”

“I’m teasing,” Cas says. “It sounds delicious.”

“I don’t actually let myself drink very often anymore,” Dean starts rambling as his hands work at putting together the beverages. “Well. Okay, that’s a lie. I don’t let myself get drunk very often.”

“There is a difference,” Cas says. Dean looks far too practiced with the shot glasses and shaker for someone who doesn’t drink, but there probably isn’t much benefit in calling him on it.

“When I do, it’s mostly gin and vodka. Calories, you know.”

Cas pulls a face. “Vodka only exists to add alcohol to other things that taste better.”

“Or to be mutilated with sugar and artificial flavors,” Dean says, capping the shaker and rattling it over one shoulder.

“Precisely,” Cas says. “It has no flavor of its own; it must be borrowed from elsewhere.”

“Hey, if you don’t have your own flavor, store bought is fine,” Dean says, and then, for some bizarre reason that Castiel cannot comprehend, he bursts into giggles so bad he has to set the shaker down and lean on his elbows on the counter. Cas watches, bemused, head tilting further and further to one side until the laughter becomes too ridiculous not to join in.

Finally, Dean stands up, wiping a tear from his eye. “Oh man. Sorry.”

“What was so funny?” Cas asks, still unable to pull the grin from his face.

“Nothin’,” Dean says. “Forget it. Dumb internet thing.” He pours the contents of the shaker into two tall, sharp glasses, and hands one to Castiel. “Cheers,” he says, and the clink of glass rings.

“What are we toasting?”

Dean doesn’t answer. He’s too busy making orgasmic noises over his manhattan. Cas hasn’t even had any yet, but he feels his belly go liquor-warm.

“Shall I leave you two alone?” he asks.

“Mm. I forgot how good whiskey is,” Dean says, taking a larger sip and savoring it, rolling it around on his tongue.

“I’ll drink to that,” Cas says, and does.

Dean’s glass is empty before Cas’s, which is both a surprise and not a surprise at all.

After Cas downs the last of his and Dean makes another round, Dean says, “Hey, come on. Let me show you the basement.”

A single alarm bell chimes in Cas’s head, faint and muzzy, muted by weed and booze and laughter. “You’re not going to go all Buffalo Bill on me, are you?”

“What? No.” Dean’s drink sloshes dangerously in its conical glass as he opens the door down into the depths of the house. He flicks on a light as they descend the narrow staircase; it has that universal basement smell of dust and earth, but clean. It’s a much classier basement than Castiel has ever been in before. “The finished basement was a big draw when I bought this place,” Dean is saying. “I had this grand plan that I was gonna host poker nights with the guys, and then—well.” He doesn’t finish the sentence properly.

The lighting is low and warm, sophisticated. There’s a massive sectional sofa angled toward what was definitely a state-of-the-art media entertainment center half a decade ago. There’s a poker table under a low-hanging, green-shaded lamp, a wet bar that doesn’t look as if it’s ever seen a drop of alcohol, and— 

“Is that a pool table?” 

“You bet,” Dean says. “You play?”

“That depends,” Cas says, leaning on the broadside of the smooth, waxed wood table edge. “How gullible are you?”

Dean’s answering grin is a contradiction, flushed pink and smouldering dark. It’s the way he licks his lower lip into his own mouth, pressing it with straight white teeth—then his feet shuffle, he clears his throat. Turns it into a chuckle.

“We got a hustler over here, barkeep.”

“Nothing wrong with a little honest gambling, officer.”

“Okay, you do that way too well.”

“Do what?” Cas pulls out his absolute best innocent face, pure as the driven snow.

“That. ‘Oh, I could never.’”

Castiel grins at him, letting a little of the devil show around the corners. “Rack ‘em,” he says.

“Pick a cue.”

They play. Cas goes easy on Dean at first, but it quickly proves unnecessary. Dean’s form is impeccable, his strokes sure and confident, and his defined forearms under his rolled-up shirtsleeves are a mouthwatering distraction. Cas knows just enough about billiards to realize that he’s outclassed, but he’s always had an instinct for the angles, so it more or less evens out. They’re down to the eight ball in just a few volleys, and Dean sinks it with a neat wall-hugging shot into the corner pocket.

“Damn you,” Cas mutters with a half-faked glare.

“Another round? Or are you tired of humble pie?”

Cas’s glare turns sharper. “Another.”

Cas wins this time, but mostly because Dean gets sidetracked showing off unnecessary jump shots and combinations. He pulls them off with aplomb, but it lets Cas focus on sinking two or three balls per shot. Not that Cas is going to complain. There’s something very attractive about watching a man with a sure grip, good tip contact, a well-laid stance, and excellent ball handling.

“What’s so funny?” Dean asks after Cas giggles himself silly at his own train of thought.

“Nothing,” he manages through the laughter.

“Whatever,” Dean says with a shake of his head, then drains the last of his cocktail. “Another round?”

“Sure.”

“I can rustle up some snacks, too,” Dean says, stepping close to snag Cas’s glass.

“You are a gentleman and a scholar,” Cas says.

Dean snorts. “Well, I’m one of those. Back in a sec.”

As Dean takes the steps upstairs two at a time, the silence of the basement descends. Cas rolls the cueball under his hand, listening to his ears buzzing and letting himself wonder what he’s actually doing here. Why Dean invited him over in the first place. Standing in this classy basement full of unrealized dreams, decked out in his linen and patchouli, he feels suddenly ridiculous.

Maybe Dean feels sorry for him. He should have known it was a bad idea to tell Dean about his living situation. It’s not as if he’s destitute; there are plenty of things that come to mind when people hear the word “homeless” that do not apply to Castiel, and no matter if he’s opening up, Dean is still viewing the world from a position of privilege which Castiel cannot forget—

No. He can’t go down that road. He likes Dean’s company. Maybe the feeling is mutual, and it’s as simple as that.

He just has to assume that until proven otherwise.

Nothing wrong with keeping one’s guard up, though.

Dean’s footsteps overhead knock him out of his thoughts, which is good because he was definitely staring a spiral in the face and he doesn’t need that right now. Dean has two manhattans balanced on a cutting board with a selection of cured meat, cheese, crackers, pickles, even a tiny pot of jam.

“That looks precarious,” Cas says, moving forward to scoop the two beverages off the cutting board.

“Thanks. You’re not vegan or anything, are you?”

Cas lifts an eyebrow. “We shared a meat skewer at the faire.”

“Oh yeah.” 

“Besides, if either of us were more likely to be vegan, I think it would be you.”

Dean shrugs, setting the cutting board down on the wet bar and taking his Manhattan from Cas’s hand—just a dry brush of fingers. “I keep the red meat and pork to a minimum, but proteins are important.”

Cas steals a chunk of gouda off the plate and pops it in his mouth. “And cheese?”

“Has a lot of protein in it.”

Cas chews, savoring. “And it’s delicious.”

“Okay, yes, also delicious,” Dean admits. “C’mon—couch.”

They sit and eat and burn through another couple of episodes of Salt & Burn. Dean finishes his third manhattan and helps Cas with his, and he seems to get both more jumpy and more loose and languid the tipsier he gets.

Cas begs off any further alcohol when Dean offers, but—“Do you mind if I smoke in here?”

“Cigarettes?”

“When have you ever seen me smoke a cigarette?”

“Oh. Yeah, sure, I guess.”

“I can go outside.”

Dean relaxes back into the couch, shaking his head, closing his eyes. “What’s a man-cave if you can’t smoke weed in it, anyway?”

Castiel loads a bowl in his glass pipe and debates various commentary on the phrase _man cave._

They watch the show. Smoke from Castiel’s little glass pocket pipe swirls around his head along with memories from the last time they watched this show, their conversation at the faire, the delicious tension whenever they had to get close. God, being tied hip-to-hip with this man was such an exquisite torture, Cas was amazed he’d been able to walk well enough to run the race. 

“Cas?” Dean asks after a while, voice dreamy and soft and his manhattan dangling from his fingers. “What actually is your job?”

“I told you,” Cas says, “counselor on call.”

“Yeah, but like—how’d you get there?”

Cas picks up his pipe and takes another hit and blows a fine set of smoke rings, stalling for time. “I have a bachelor’s degree in social work, and I was working on a master’s in counseling,” he says eventually. It’s the shortest version of events. “Plus, I have a few certifications in mediation.”

“Wow,” Dean says. “You’re more educated than I am. I just have a business degree.”

“Don’t sound so surprised,” Cas says, just a touch of acid in his tone. There’s that itching powder again. “Anyway, I worked for the state for a while in and after college. I wore a suit and everything.”

Dean lets out a loud “Pah!” of laughter, then covers his mouth with one hand. “Sorry,” he says behind it. “That’s just hard to imagine.”

“It’s hard for me to believe,” Cas says, picking at his billowing magenta pants.

“How come you don’t anymore?”

“A combination of factors,” he says. “Too much red tape and bureaucracy, not enough actually helping people.”

“So now you’re… what. On-call teenage babysitter?”

Cas turns a withering glare on him. “It’s nothing so trivial. Sometimes I’m manning the crisis hotline; sometimes I have office hours at the resource center; sometimes I make house calls. Those tend to be for special, long-term cases. My job is whatever they need me to do.”

“And they’re paying you.” He says it like a statement, like anything else is not worth considering.

“Whatever they can afford,” Cas says, short, sharp. “And before you start, don’t. I’ve heard it all.”

“I wasn’t—” Dean stops, pulls himself up from where he’s melted into the back cushions of the sectional, hunches forward with elbows on his knees and rolls the stem of his glass between his palms. The maraschino cherry at the bottom spins. “It’s good, what you do. You make a difference, and that—that’s great.” He pauses for a while, watches the Salt and Burn boys get pinned to the wall by some invisible force or another. 

Cas’s hackles go down slowly, in stages. “Thank you.”

He thinks the conversation will trail off, but then Dean speaks again. “Wish I could say the same for my job. I mean, sure, I make money, and it got me this house, and—I dunno.” Dean sets his glass down on the coffee table and stares at it. “I mean, what good is it if I don’t have anyone to share it with? And I usually work too much to even enjoy it myself. And for what? So that some mega-corp can make _more_ money? So that I can make regional assistant sales director by the time I’m forty?”

“That’s one hell of a midlife crisis you’ve got brewing there,” Cas says. He’s never seen the point of calling a spade anything but a spade.

Dean huffs. “Yeah, no kidding.” The show plays on, splashing raspberry-red gore across the screen.

Finally, Dean sucks in air, sitting up straighter. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to get all maudlin on you.”

“It’s fine,” Cas says. “I’m here to listen.”

It’s a line, and it isn’t.

Dean laughs, a little sad. “You know, I used to be a fun drunk.”

“I believe it,” Cas says. “You and Charlie must have really torn up the town.”

“What’s she been telling you?” Dean asks, shrewd and cautious.

“Only the worst stories. I promise,” he says with an exaggerated wink.

For some reason, that sends Dean into paroxysms of laughter, the tension bubbling out of him like champagne out of an uncorked bottle. Cas laughs too, subdued, mostly just grinning and watching Dean’s full-bodied mirth. Eventually, almost out of habit, he lifts his pipe to his lips.

“Hey, uh,” Dean starts to say, laughter calming down, leaving him lighter, looser. “Can I have some?”

Now there’s a surprise. Castiel feels his eyebrows climb as he exhales. “You sure?”

“Yeah. I mean. It’s been a while, but—” he trails off with a shrug.

Cas eyes the pipe in his hand. He’s not the type to refuse a man some green if he wants it. “Let me load a fresh bowl.”

He ashes into his own empty glass and packs some fragrant herb from his little stash box. The ritual is calming for Castiel while Dean rubs his palms together over his knees. For half a second, Cas toys with the idea of turning up the heat on this—but ultimately, he just turns the pipe around and hands it to Dean, mouthpiece first. “Newbies get the greens,” he says, solemn and serious.

Dean shoots him a little glare. “I’m not a newbie.”

“If it’s been longer than a decade, you’re a newbie.”

Dean takes a moment to calculate, then huffs. “Great. Now I feel old.”

Without further preamble, he takes the pipe from Cas’s hand and lifts it to his lips. He grazes the cannabis delicately with the flame; Cas watches, ready to grab the pipe from him when he’s done, waiting for the inevitable coughing fit.

What he gets instead is Dean placing the pipe and lighter down on the coffee table, hesitating for just a split second, then grabbing for Cas’s neck and pulling him in—

It’s not a kiss. Not really. Cas realizes what he’s doing just in time, opens his mouth and empties his lungs to receive a long stream of smoke from Dean’s lips. He keeps his eyes wide open for the point-blank view of Dean’s freckles, eyelashes, the plane of his cheek. There’s only one brief, bright, electric spark of contact between their mouths, but the feel of Dean this close to him is a heady rush, knocking Castiel’s world sideways in a way that whiskey and weed can’t account for. He sucks it in greedily, eager and open, hands clenching in two surprised fists, then rising to catch Dean’s arms. It’s more than a little clumsy, and it only lasts a few seconds before the anticipated coughing fit kicks in. Dean turns his head away. He bends over his knees, hacking his lungs up. Cas’s hands stay on him—he can’t seem to make them leave, now that they’ve touched—soothing up and down his back, fingertips lingering at his elbow.

“Sorry,” Dean wheezes. “That was a lot smoother in my head.”

“I thought it was plenty smooth,” Cas says, still breathless. “Where did you learn that?”

“Guy I knew in college,” Dean says, sitting up. “Ash. Played D&D with me ‘n’ Charlie. We were, uh.” He stops. Cas’s heart thumps once. “We were business partners.”

The thump turns into a click. “You sold weed?” Cas asks, more incredulous than he has ever been in his life.

Dean just shrugs, a dopey smile spreading his lips, lopsided. He leans into Cas’s hand on his back, and it slides up into his hair, taking its own initiative. “Most of the business majors did,” he says. “It was a solid strategy, good experience. And we were the good boys. Nobody suspected a thing.”

“And Ash… taught you how to shotgun?”

Dean’s eyes fall closed and his cheeks turn so pink, they glow. “Sort of. He used to use that trick on girls all the time. So, I, uh. Yeah, tried it on some guys, if I knew they were, y’know.”

“Did it work?”

“I mean.” Dean shrugs. “Kinda.”

Cas moves his fingers gently through the crisp hair at the back of Dean’s head, rubbing at his scalp, mussing up the gelled perfection. Dean’s eyes close, and Cas watches his throat move as he swallows, letting his head fall heavy into Cas’s hand. He keeps leaning. Cas shuffles, Dean follows, and soon they’re both tucked into the cushy corner of the sectional, Cas sitting on his own feet, turned sideways, Dean slouched low with his knees knocked wide.

The Salt and Burn boys are having a tearful conversation on the hood of the Mustang when Dean opens his eyes and turns to look at Cas. They’re so green, so wide, so shining. He has just a hint of red in the whites from the weed, and his irises look as green as spring leaves instead of their usual jade-hazel.

They’re very close. Cas doesn’t pull back, and neither does Dean. His gaze roves all over Cas’s face, returning again and again to his lips.

The fingers of Cas’s other hand find a path up the smooth sleeve of Dean’s shirt, over the stiff plane of his collar, then stutter over the skin of his neck, the stubbled line of his jaw. He feels Dean take a deep-diver breath; his own comes faster.

“Is this okay?” he asks, letting feather-light fingertips explore the strong bolt of Dean’s jaw, the plane of his cheek. His thumb taps on Dean’s chin, knocking twice.

“Uh-huh,” Dean hums, open-mouthed, and Cas feels him nod, so slight he wouldn’t have noticed it if he hadn’t had a hand on him. Still, Cas waits, savoring, anticipating.

Until Dean’s tongue darts out to wet his lower lip.

Cas follows it in.

Dean rises to meet him.

His lips are soft, cool from his breath, and the sound he makes under Cas’s kiss is like quicksand—he could easily fall into it. Dean lies still under him for a long moment; Cas can feel him straining against himself until Cas pulls back just far enough to murmur “You can touch me,” in a whisper against his lips. 

Dean gives him a soft sound and surges up into him with his lips, his hands, knuckles first. They’re clenched in fists, but they loop around Cas’s back and pull him in tight. Dean kisses like he’s starving, like Cas is going to be snatched away at any moment. Cas is breathing heavy when he breaks the kiss to knee-shuffle closer, and Dean’s eyes are closed, lashes long and shadowy on his pink cheeks. Cas can’t stay away, dives back in, and this time it’s an open-mouthed desperate mess, deep and full of promise.

Finally, Cas pulls back, though he doesn’t make it far. “I’ve wanted to do that since the first time I saw you,” he says. His thumb traces the valley between Dean’s chin and lower lip.

Dean swallows again, hard, then he’s pulling at Cas with his eyes screwed shut, pulling him into his lap to settle with a knee on either side of Dean’s thighs. Cas is expecting more kisses, but Dean bends his head down to press his face into Cas’s collarbone. He’s breathing hard; Cas can feel the racing of his heart where he’s pressed in tight.

Worry pings in Cas’s belly. “Dean?”

But Dean just uncurls and kisses him again without opening his eyes. Cas goes with it, though something has tilted off center. Dean is like a dream beneath him, muscled shoulders under his crisp, smooth shirt. The gel in his hair cracks under Cas’s fingers, falling apart, and Dean’s high whine fuels him on, but a piece of his mind remains watchful. Dean throws himself into the kisses, wholly open-mouthed and clumsy with inexperience. It’s like a match to Castiel’s molotov cocktail, and the heat of desire melts between them like thick, dark molasses.

“Cas—” Dean whines between their open lips, and Castiel wants to _ruin him_ , but—but Dean is gripping him too tightly, eyes unfocused, not seeing anything. His breathing is labored, too fast, and his heart is still pounding like a drum between them.

“Dean,” Cas says, pulling a few inches further away, trying to catch Dean’s line of sight.

He can’t. Dean won’t let him.

And that is perhaps the most worrisome thing.

“It’s fine,” Dean says, angling toward Cas’s lips again. “I’m fine, it’s okay, we can keep—”

“Look at me.”

Dean’s eyes slam shut, and he crumbles against Cas’s shoulder.

Cas doesn’t move. His hands cool from gripping to petting, soothing. He focuses his entire attention on the man below him, but the whole of him, not just the parts he wants to play with. Dean is drawn bowstring-tight, his hands clutching convulsively at Cas’s shoulders, his waist. When he does raise his eyes to Cas’s, Cas is shocked by what he sees there.

Shame. Panic. Tears.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Dean says.

Cas is quiet for a long moment, letting that sit, searching Dean’s face. “You’re breathing,” he says, and Dean’s lungs stutter like he’d forgotten about that. “Can you tell me what you’re feeling right now?”

Dean squirms, but Cas doesn’t shift off his lap and Dean doesn’t actually try to dislodge him. He does hide his face again, first in Cas’s chest, then in his own hands. When he speaks, it’s muffled.

“I don’t know what I’m so fucking scared of,” he says. “I—I want this, I really do, I want _you_ , I just—” He trails off again and Cas gathers him up in his arms, wrapping him up tight. He’s so tense, it’s like hugging a wooden statue.

“I’m glad to hear that,” Cas says. “But we can slow down.”

Dean snorts. It sounds wet behind his hands. “You shouldn’t have to baby me, I’m a grown-ass man.”

“But you’ve never done this before,” he says.

Silently, after a moment, Dean shakes his head against Cas’s collarbone.

“Then you’re still new. Just as new as if you’d been doing this as a teenager.”

Dean lets out a puff of warm breath into the fabric of Cas’s shirt, then squirms harder until Cas slides off to the side, slow with reluctance.

Dean stands, paces the floor with his hands on his hips. Cas notices Netflix asking if they’re still watching.

“Sorry,” Dean says eventually. “This was a stupid idea. You can go if you want.”

Castiel sits very still. “And if I don’t want?”

Dean shrugs, then rubs at his eyes.

“I should have said this earlier,” Cas says, “but I want you, too.”

Dean laughs, a harsh snort with no mirth in it. “Yeah, I bet you do. A flighty 33-year-old virgin who can’t even admit that he’s—” Silence.

Cas waits. Lets the silence hang. Lets Dean feel and think whatever he needs to feel and think.

When Dean doesn’t do anything but swallow his tongue, Cas prompts, “That he’s what?”

“You know.”

“Yes, but I think you need to say it.”

“Shut up.”

“Dean—”

“Okay! Okay, I’m gay, alright? You happy?”

Cas just smiles at him, pleased and proud.

“Fuck,” Dean exhales, bending over at the waist. “Oh, fuck—”

Cas is on his feet in a flash, catching Dean’s stumble and getting him to the safety of the couch.

“I’m going to get you some water,” he says, a hand on Dean’s shoulder. Dean nods, eyes closed and complexion sweaty, blotchy.

Thankfully, the wet bar still works for water. Cas rinses the dust out of a pint glass and lets the faucet run cold before he fills it.

Dean downs half of it in three long pulls, then sets it on the coffee table and presses his palms into his eyes.

“Can I rub your back?” Cas asks.

“I’m not gonna break, Jesus,” Dean snaps from behind his hands.

“Consent is sexy,” Cas deadpans.

Dean snorts. Then, in a small voice, “Yeah, that actually sounds nice.”

Cas lets his hand rub over Dean’s back in long, soothing strokes and circles. Occasionally he scratches, sometimes he squeezes at the tense muscles of Dean’s shoulders and neck. 

“Thank you,” Cas says. “I’m sorry I pushed.”

“No, you’re not,” Dean says.

“Okay, no, I’m not. You needed to say it.”

Dean nods, finally pulls his hands away from his face. “Yeah.” He licks his lips like something is hovering right behind them. “I’m—I’m gay.”

Cas grins at him, then says, “Have you ever said it out loud before?”

Dean sighs, deep and heavy like the air rushing out of a long-sealed vault. “I mean, yeah. Not in a long time though. College.”

Curiosity pricks at Cas’s brain. “What happened?”

Dean stares into the middle distance for a long moment, then rubs at his face again. “Can I tell you another time?”

“Of course,” Castiel says at once.

“Thanks.”

Cas keeps rubbing his back. Dean reaches for his other hand; his palm is warm and soft against Castiel’s.

When Dean looks at Cas again, he’s puffy-eyed and pink-faced, but calmer. “So, what now?” 

A moment of consideration, and then, “I’d like to kiss you again.”

Dean scoffs. “Really?”

“Yes. I don’t have to. But I want to.”

Dean licks his lips and leans back, trapping Cas’s hand between his shoulder and the sofa cushion. “'Kay.”

Cas leans in, a hand on Dean’s thigh for balance. Dean meets him halfway, and he places a tender kiss on plush lips. It’s chaste, innocent even, but the shiver that wracks Dean’s body, the sharp exhalation against Castiel’s cheek, puts all their earlier explorations to shame.

It’s brief, but glowing, and when Castiel does pull back, Dean’s eyes stay closed. Not squeezed shut against the light like before, but softly, savoring.

“I like kissing you, Dean,” Cas says, and his voice has dropped to a low rumble.

Dean’s eyes blink open, clear and eager. “Yeah,” he sighs. One hand comes up to Castiel’s cheek, palm and fingers over the rough stubble.

They stay like that for a long moment. Castiel doesn’t want to pull away, even when breathing the same air as Dean starts to make his head spin. Even when the stroke of Dean’s thumb over his cheekbone starts to spread a whole different kind of goosebumps down his spine.

Eventually, Dean clears his throat. “I, uh. I think we left the boys hanging,” he says.

It takes Castiel a moment to remember the show. “Oh.”

“You want to keep watching?” Dean asks.

“If you want to.”

“Yeah, let’s.” Dean scoops up the remote and presses play, and Cas scoots back to settle into the corner of the sectional again. The show starts playing again, but Cas still faces Dean, savoring whatever sweet, timeless thing has stretched between them. The distance is probably good, though he wants to close it again immediately. 

He should be frightened of how easily addictive Dean is. 

He’ll worry about that later.

In the meantime, he watches Dean with one corner of his eye and the show with the other corner.

At the change of the episode, Dean turns toward him.

“Can you—” he starts. Then swipes a hand over his face. “Could we, uh.” Vague gestures between the two of them manage to get the point across, and Cas lets his arms and legs fall open in welcoming.

“Cuddle?” he asks.

Dean’s cheeks go rosy. “Shut up,” he says. But he goes, falling into Cas’s orbit and arranging himself slowly, carefully, lengthwise along the cushions with his head on Cas’s chest. It’s awkward at first. Dean is tense against Cas’s body, like he’s afraid to put his weight on him. But Cas soothes his hands up and down Dean’s back and shoulders, scootches down until he has Dean’s head tucked under his chin. Indulges himself by nuzzling against the warm prickles of Dean’s hair, pressing a kiss to the crown. Incrementally, in little shifts and shuffles and sighs, Dean melts into Cas’s embrace.

And wouldn’t you know it, that’s just as satisfying as ruining his composure with kisses.

Cas lets his hands roam as far as they can, keeping them calming and low, a gentle exploration. Dean is solid, but soft in places. Like the flanks of his belly, the little curve of his back just behind his armpits, the lumbar sweep of his spine. Cas finds himself enamored with these little pockets of squish in the midst of all the firm, muscular lines.

He’s lost track of how many times his hands have swept up and over Dean’s barely there love handles before Dean wiggles. “Quit that,” he grumbles, but it’s a slurred, smiling grumble that doesn’t have any real heat behind it.

“Quit what?” Cas asks.

“Quit playing with my chubby spots.”

Cas almost laughs. “I like them,” he says, grinning into Dean’s hair. “But I would hardly call them chubby spots.”

“Tell that to my BMI.” Before Cas can process that enough for a rebuke, Dean continues. “Besides, you’re one to talk, Mister Yoga-Pants-and-Six-Pack.”

“You should try yoga sometime,” Cas says. “It’s a remarkably good workout, and the flexibility benefits cannot be overstated.”

Dean shifts again, and though he doesn’t say anything, Cas can swear he feels the heat of his blush against his chest. A slow grin spreads over Cas’s face, a silent giggle shaking his body.

“Shut up,” Dean mutters again, muffled in Cas’s shirt.

“I didn’t say anything. It was your dirty thought, not mine.”

“I’m a 33-year-old gay virgin snuggled up against a super-hot guy for the first time in over a decade. Where do you think my mind is going?”

Cas lets out a full belly-laugh, warmth blooming through him as he holds Dean tight in his arms.

God, he can’t get enough of this man.

And just like that, the fear hits him like a bell clapper to the ribs. He rings with it, sudden and sharp.

What the hell is he doing?

There are reasons he doesn’t get involved. 

Cas knows what this is, or he should. Dean wants something, but there’s no one in his life who can give it to him, and Cas is just some nobody, some passing-through drifter with a nice ass and a pretty face. He’s disposable. Dean can fuck him and forget about him, can use him as a stepping stone to figuring out whatever it is in his own head that’s keeping him from living his life.

And then he’ll… do that. Live his life. Without Castiel.

Cas has been playing at a life he doesn’t belong to. In a few weeks he’ll be back to showering at the gym, living out of his van, getting high to block out the shit-basket of a usual life. And Dean will still be here, in his ivory tower, and maybe he’ll think fondly of the first guy he slept with, the guy who pushed him off the gay cliff. Maybe he’ll reminisce with a future boyfriend—someone with a stable career and perfect hair—about the weirdo who took care of his neighbor’s cats that one time, and they’ll laugh and kiss and feel connected while Cas is probably getting frostbite in a ditch somewhere— 

“Cas?” Dean’s voice breaks through his spiral. “Got real quiet there, buddy.”

Deliberately, Cas relaxes his muscles. “Just enjoying the view,” he says.

Dean huffs, but buys the line, giving Cas time to collect himself. He’s barely paid any attention to the last three episodes, but he focuses now as a ready-made distraction. His arms start to ache from their calculated tightness around Dean’s shoulders.

What would it do to Dean if he backed out now?

He can’t do that to him. It would be confirmation of everything he fears about himself, and who knows if he’d have the courage to try again. Dean doesn’t deserve that. And it’s certainly no hardship for Castiel to introduce him to all the wonderful things two men can do with each other’s bodies. That’s all he wanted from the beginning, anyway.

He can still do this. He can be that guy for Dean. Castiel is the master of not letting himself get involved, of keeping a piece of his heart to himself at all times. Stone-cold Cassie, that’s what Balthazar calls him. So he just has to do what he’s good at: Fuck ‘em and leave ‘em. Use ‘em and lose ‘em.

And not get attached.

It’ll be fine.

~~

When Dean wakes, he is very warm and his pillow is rumbling. When did he get a cat? Is Thomas in his room again? And why is his bed all lumpy— 

“Dean?”

It’s Cas’s voice, right under Dean’s ear. Dean shifts, and becomes newly aware of the six solid feet of dude he’s been using as a body pillow for god knows how long.

“How long was I out?” he slurs, mouth not really awake yet. Oh, god, if he’s drooled on Cas, he’s moving to the moon.

“I think you dozed off during the racist truck episode.”

Dean pushes himself up, squinting, wiping his face. No drool that he can detect, so that’s good, but his brain is rebelling at being dragged out of a very comfortable slumber. Probably the best sleep he’s had in months.

He’s… not going to overthink that.

Much.

Not right now, anyway.

“Sorry,” he says. “I swear, I’m tons of fun.”

Cas’s lips twist, and Dean remembers how they tasted, how they felt on his mouth, on his neck and collar. The residual heat in his body shifts lower, and he shivers.

“I’m sure you are,” Cas says, then swings his bare feet to the floor and stands. He links his hands behind his back and stretches his arms up, working kinks out of his spine and shoulders.

Maybe there’s something to all that yoga crap.

Which just makes Dean’s blood run every which way again.

Cas turns back to him, and those blue eyes sink into Dean’s soul. He looks—tired. Weary. Sad, maybe. But it’s late, and Dean’s sure he doesn’t look like a spring daisy himself.

“I should go,” Cas says.

 _Or you could stay,_ Dean almost says. The words are right there on his lips, but he swallows them. Too soon. “Right,” he says instead.

He walks Cas to the door, and now that he has what feels like permission, Dean’s hands can’t stay away. They follow Cas like he’s made of magnets, little touches to his lower back, his shoulder, a gentle ruffle of his hair after pointing out how it’s rucked up in the back. That earns him a playful swat and a glare and one wrist caught in the circle of Cas’s strong hand, and for half a second he thinks Cas is going to kiss him again. He’s close, eyes intense as he presses right to the center of Dean’s personal-space bubble. Dean wants to yield to his advance, already open-mouthed. Wants to drag him upstairs instead of letting him walk out the door, even if all they do is fall asleep on each other again.

But Castiel pulls away with a Mona Lisa smirk, letting go of his wrist.

“Goodnight, Dean,” he says.

“G’night, Cas,” Dean says, and locks the door behind him.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Be warned: This chapter was edited while both my [beta reader](https://elanor-n-evermind.tumblr.com) and I were loopy with sleepiness. Apologies for any for loose punctuation or wayward grammar.
> 
> As another warning, there's some vague and non-specific talk of homophobic violence in this chapter. Just a heads up <3
> 
> Also because I've had this question a couple of times, no, Dean's parents in this story are not supposed to be Bobby and Ellen. They're left purposefully non-specific, but his dad is way more of a John archetype than Bobby.

It’s not the first time he’s said it. But it’s different in the bathroom mirror, or drunk on the roof of his freshman dorm with his newly minted lesbian best friend. It was different in college—easier when everything in life was transient, when it barely mattered who he met or what he did because one semester later, it would all be different.

This is real life. If his job were a kid, it would be in grade school by now. He has a mortgage. He has… well, not exactly friends, plural, but—you know what, forget that one. He’s a grown up.

And it’s still true, no matter how much he’d tried to ignore it or shove it down or hide it under layers of respectability, like lead paint on an old house.

And now he’s gone and let the demons out of Pandora’s box.

Monday comes all too soon. He fidgets his way through his morning meetings, his afternoon grind, and the words sit on his teeth.

It’s really not anybody’s business. So why does he feel the sudden urge to tell everybody he passes? It’s never mattered before and it shouldn’t matter now, and he knows well enough that, in most cases, he would get a non-reaction at best. It doesn’t matter to them. It only matters to Cas because he’s—because they— 

But this is work, and he has to hide any inconvenient fantasizing behind his desk because these trousers don’t hide a damn thing.

Cas’s texts don’t help.

_Cas: [So. What are you interested in?]_

_Dean: [You’re the expert.]_

_Cas: [Humor me.]_

_Dean: [I don’t know. Everything?]_

_Cas: [Great, I’ll ready the St. Andrew’s Cross and lube up my largest, spikiest butt plug.]_

_Cas: [That was a joke.]_

_Dean: [Ha ha, very funny.]_

It’s sporadic throughout the day, each one a starburst in his belly whenever he feels his phone buzz. He checks them quickly and feels bad to be disappointed when one of them is Charlie.

At the end of the day, after a finger-tapping drive home, there’s Cas on the porch, and Dean has to try real hard to pretend his heart isn’t in his throat. He’s foregone the robe in the advancing heat of summer, and Dean can swear he can see the sheen of sweat on his chest. His movements are languid, molten, feet propped up on the railing of the porch, crossed at the ankles. There’s a book in his lap, but he smiles when he sees Dean.

Dean licks his lips. “Hey,” he says.

Apropos of nothing, Cas says: “The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die.”

Dean pulls up short. “What?”

Closing his book on his finger, Cas says, “Nietzsche. He was making a point.”

“I’m sure he was.” Grasping at threads of free association, Dean flings out the first one he catches. “Didn’t he also say God is dead?”

Cas snorts. “Yes, but he meant well by it.”

“I can’t say I’ve ever actually read any.”

“I’m not surprised. He’s somewhat niche.”

Dean joins Cas on the porch but doesn’t head toward his door yet. “Would you say he’s in the Nietzsche niche?”

Cas’s whole face squints up in a giggle, long and squeaky and uncontrolled. Dean spies the empty pipe and grinder on the table and wonders idly how much he’s had to smoke. He spins the roulette wheel on how to feel about that and lands on a completely unprecedented fondness.

“Hey,” he starts. “You, uh.” He licks his lips, and Cas watches, suddenly intense, laughter fading but leaving the glow in his eyes. When Dean manages to shove the words out, they come all at once. “You wanna watch some Salt and Burn?”

Cas knows what he means; Dean can tell. “What about your nightly routine?”

A bit breathless, Dean says, “It can wait.”

~~

Kissing Cas is so damn good.

Dean spends most of the next day in a haze, drunk on physical contact and a persistent low buzz of arousal. He feels like a teenager, like his skin is all lit up from the inside, like he’s going to burst at the seams.

It hadn’t even taken them half an episode before they were slanted together in the corner of Dean’s sofa, anticipation buzzing behind Dean’s lips just at being close to him. Cas had started playing with his tie; he’d started petting Cas’s hair. Cas had slipped two fingers under his suspenders, and that was it. They had whiled away the evening in each other’s arms, kisses flowing together like streams into rivers. It never went further—Cas stopped Dean trying, kept it light and playful, and even though Dean’s dick had cried against the seam of his boxers, even though he knew for a damn fact that he was being treated with kid gloves and he should resent it, he didn’t. He was grateful.

If they’d actually gone further, he probably would have spontaneously combusted. Or freaked out again.

As it is, he can ride the wave of exhilaration without drowning. Right now, he can just _want_ , and it’s okay.

It’s more than okay.

Sometime around lunch, Dean’s phone buzzes in his pocket.

_Cas: [You must have fantasies. You must watch porn.]_

_Cas: [You do watch porn, don’t you?]_

_Dean: [Yeah, I watch porn.]_

_Cas: [I want it to be a good experience for you.]_

_Cas: [I want to know what you think about. What turns you on.]_

_Cas: [Don’t overthink it. First thing that comes into your mind.]_

_Dean: [Dude. Phrasing.]_

_Dean: [I want to suck you off.]_

_Dean: [Christ, I can’t believe I typed that.]_

_Cas: [Very good, Dean.]_

_Cas: [You have incredible lips. Do you know how many times I’ve pictured them around my cock? I can’t wait to show you how to use them.]_

_Cas: [But to do that, I’m going to have to suck yours first, you know that, right?]_

_Cas: [Do you want that?]_

_Cas: [Dean?]_

_Dean: [Yaeh i want tht]_

_Dean: [Sorry]_

_Dean: [couldn’t have that conversation at my desk]_

_Cas: [Where are you now?]_

_Dean: [Bathroom]_

_Dean: [Still at work]_

_Cas: [Are you hard?]_

_Dean: [Way too hard for a guy sitting on a toilet]_

_Cas: [Sounds like you need to take the edge off.]_

_Dean: [ur gonna get me fired]_

_Cas: [Touch yourself, Dean, and think about my mouth on you, taking you in, finding all your sensitive spots with my tongue and lips.]_

_Cas: [Touch yourself, and think about my cock in your mouth, stretching your jaw open, how it’s going to taste. Think about my fingers in your hair.]_

_Cas: [It doesn’t have to be now. It can be later, on your bed, naked and aching in your own palm, but the next time you touch yourself, I want you to think about that.]_

_Dean: [jsuses cas]_

_Cas: [;-) Enjoy.]_

~~

“Come on, just one more.”

The sheen of sweat on Cas's skin prickles uncomfortably. He pushes with a grunt and a grimace, feeling his arms and shoulders shake like they’re about to give out. But he can’t let them. Not right now.

His palms are slippery on the steel bar, but Dean’s spotting him, positioned at the head of the weight bench with his hands hovering where they can catch the weights if Cas starts to falter. As if the bench press wasn’t enough to think about, he’s got a snake’s-eye view up Dean’s flat belly and chest in a stretchy-tight T-shirt to distract him, not to mention the bulge of his groin directly at eye level. 

“You usually do this alone?” he asks through gritted teeth as he lowers the bar. Why had he let his pride talk him into that extra twenty pounds?

“Not normally with this much weight on,” comes with a shit-eating grin.

“Screw you, Mr. Smith.”

That’s the last rep, and Dean helps him get the bar back on the stand. Cas sits up off the weight bench feeling like his arms are about to float away from his body. “What next?” Cas asks, choosing bravado over whimpering _please, God, let it be over._

Dean’s not even trying to pull his gaze up from Castiel’s chest. Ordinarily, Cas would posture and pose, give him a reward for being so open about his ogling. Right now, though, he can’t muster up the extra energy.

Besides, Dean’s taking his rightful eyeful all the same. “Uh, that’s it. That’s all I got,” Dean says.

“Oh thank God,” Cas says in a rush, then makes a bee-line for Dean’s kitchen. Without another word, he’s got a pint glass in hand and is chugging water from the sink.

“Careful,” Dean says, following him into the kitchen. “Take it slow.”

 _Oh, I am,_ Cas thinks. _You have no idea._

He follows the advice, though, leaning on the island and sipping slowly on his second glass of water while Dean pulls some cheese and crackers out of the fridge and cupboards. At least, he thinks it’s cheese and crackers. He’s paying way more attention to the round swell of Dean’s ass in those silky-soft shorts. His palms ache from the rough texture of the weight bar, and he wants to soothe them on Dean’s skin.

Later. Maybe. Hopefully.

“Do you ever go to a public gym?” he asks.

Dean shakes his head. “Nah. I like the privacy. Besides, with the hours I work, this just makes more sense.”

It could be true. It’s probably not completely false. “Mmhmm.” Cas sips his water.

Dean turns around with a plate for them to share. There’s salami, too. “And, yeah, I didn’t really want to deal with the cruising,” he admits.

“Too tempting?”

Dean munches on a cracker and lets himself look all up and down Cas’s body again. “Something like that.”

Cas sets down his water glass, takes the plate from Dean’s hands and puts it on the counter before sliding in close to Dean. Close enough to watch his pupils dilate, to smell the good, clean, masculine scent of his sweat. To hear the soft pop when his lips open in anticipation.

He hangs there for a few heartbeats, taking in the sights, letting Dean anticipate his next move.

And then, “My turn,” he says, and takes a step toward the door where he’d set down the mats.

Dean blinks. “Huh?”

“Time for a little payback,” he says. “You said weightlifting; I said yoga.”

“You were serious?”

Cas shoves one of the yoga mats at Dean’s stomach. “Namaste, motherfucker.”

~~

_Dean: [Hey]_

_Cas: [Hello, Dean]_

_Dean: [I,m a lil drunk]_

_Cas: [Congratulations]_

_Dean: [stfu]_

_Dean: [This sht was alawys easier when i w as drunk]_

_Cas: [Telling]_

_Dean: [Im trying to tell you]_

_Cas: [What are you trying to tell me?]_

_Dean: [I want you to duck me]_

_Dean: [FUCK]_

_Dean: [Ducking typos]_

_Dean: [F this]_

_Dean: [I can hear you laughing through the walls]_

_Dean: [Dick]_

_Cas: [I’m sorry]_

_Dean: [U r not]_

_Cas: [I don’t think you want me to duck you. Do you have any idea what a duck’s penis looks like?]_

_Dean: [This is one of those things i shouldnt google isnt it]_

_Cas: [Absolutely not]_

_Dean: [Dammit]_

_Cas: [You googled it, didn’t you?]_

_Dean: [Of course I did]_

_Dean: [Nevermind staying a virgin forever]_

~~

“You have a second car?”

“Yeah, she’s my baby,” Dean says as he keys in the numbers to open the garage. They could have gone through the house, but he’d decided this was more dramatic. “She was my dad’s, and she’s a classic, but she’s too much of a gas guzzler to commute with.” The number box beeps red at him, and he frowns. How long has it been since he took his girl out for a drive? He can’t have forgotten the fucking code.

“If you’re expecting a big reaction, be warned, I know absolutely nothing about cars. Charlie says I’m allergic to them.”

Dean glances back at him. “Don’t you live in a van?”

“That’s different,” Cas says. “That’s necessity. Besides, I have mechanic friends who will fix anything that goes wrong.”

The code box beeps red again, and Dean swears under his breath. “Well, you can add me to that list,” he says.

“You work on cars?” 

“If I can ever get this damn thing open—ah.” Finally, he hits on the right combination of birthdays and lucky numbers and the garage door grinds its way open, revealing boxes of junk he’d never unpacked, a bench’s worth of tools gathering dust, and the hulking shape of a 1967 Chevy Impala tucked under a dust cloth. Dean steps into the dusty-musty cool of the garage, grabs hold of the sheet with both hands—definitely doesn’t glance back to make sure Cas is watching—and pulls.

There she is, shining black in all her glory. Dean really should make a point of taking her out more often; she’s a lady, and doesn’t deserve to be cooped up in a garage all the time. He walks all the way around her twice, first just to appreciate her strong, classic lines, then checking to make sure she’s no worse for the wear of her long slumber. Kicks the tires—solid—opens the hood—great condition—then remembers he has a guest.

Castiel is standing at the door of the garage and staring, partly at the car, and, Dean’s relatively certain, partly at him. Dean just grins and spreads his arms. “Eh?”

“Okay, I will admit,” Castiel says, “this is impressive.”

Score one for Baby. “Right? C’mon, hop in.”

~~

It’s a perfect day for a drive. With the windows rolled down and the music loud, the sky an endless blue shell overhead, all they need is the open road in front of them. Dean aims them out of the city as fast as he can, out to the highways that lead into nowhere where he can let the Impala roar. He drives faster than is wise to the blaring guitars of Back in Black; Cas sticks his whole head out the window, his loose tank top billowing like a sail. When he comes back in, his hair is swept back like wings.

“I may have swallowed a bug,” he says, not loud enough.

“What?” Dean yells over the rush of the wind and the road and the music.

Cas just shakes his head and waves a hand. Dean can’t keep the grin off his face as the Impala eats up the road.

After a while, he steers them toward a more sedate scenic highway. The pines and firs and broad-leaved maples close in around them, dappling the sunshine into pools of gold and green. Through the tree trunks, Dean can see the Columbia River winding between red-rock hills dotted with evergreens and scrub.

They drive without urgency, soaking in the beautiful scenery and talking about nothing more weighty than the relative hotness of the two Salt and Burn leads. Dean feels a strange sensation washing over him, and he thinks it might be peace.

“Are we going somewhere special, or are we just driving?” Castiel asks eventually.

“You’ll have to wait and see, now, won’t you?” Dean says.

As the sun sneaks to the west and the light grows long and gilded, Dean finds what he’s been looking for, even if he didn’t realize it: a wide shoulder off the curve of the road where the trees are sparse and the hill drops away dramatically down to the river. He pulls off to the side and kills the engine; the quiet and sudden stillness are jarring as they climb out of the car and approach the edge of the viewpoint. Dean feels like he could see all the way to the ocean in one direction and all the way up the mountains in the other. The deep teal river below is almost brighter than the sun as it turns into molten gold between the rocks.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d ask if you brought guys here often,” Cas says. Dean turns away from the view, and his breath halts in his lungs at the sight of Castiel limned in sunset, squinting against the rays and leaning against the Impala’s shining hood. 

Dean ambles back to the car and hops up on her nose. It’s hot from the drive, but bearable. “Nah,” he says, stating the obvious. “I come up here to think sometimes, though.”

Cas gingerly climbs up onto the car next to him, clearly expecting it to crumple like modern fiberglass before realizing it’s solid steel he’s sitting on. “Think about what?”

“Stuff,” Dean says with a shrug. “Everything. Life, I guess.”

They watch the sun glittering on the water for a few moments. A breeze sighs through the lodgepole pines around them, bringing with it a suggestion of a chilly evening. Dean leans back on his hands; Cas does too, and one of his arms ends up crossed under Dean’s.

“Sometimes I take a left turn after work and end up just driving for a while,” Dean says. “Get myself a little lost, you know? I get this urge to just—just get on the highway and keep going.” It lets him pretend for a few minutes that he can leave it all behind, pick up his tenuous roots and start again somewhere new. Somewhere different. Be somebody different. “It’d be nice to start over, you know?”

In the warm light of sunset, Cas’s eyes are like chips of topaz, more yellow than blue. “I think a lot of people have that urge,” he says. “Especially in your position.”

“My position?”

“Senior assistant distribution manager.”

Dean laughs a little, looking back out. The sky is bleeding from indigo to red-orange, the only blemish a few airplane trails across the horizon which gleam nearly white. The wind picks up again, and Dean scoots closer to Cas on the hood; Cas’s arm comes up around his waist, tucking into the belted band of his pants. Dean’s breathing stutters. It’s not skin-to-skin, the hand doesn’t try to dig under his tucked-in shirt. Still. It’s a rush.

“Dean?”

“Yeah?”

“What happened in college?”

Dean blinks, the afterimage of the sun green on his eyelids. “I really did bring you up here to make out,” he says.

In a low voice, close to Dean’s ear, Cas says, “Humor me.”

For a long time, Dean doesn’t say anything. Cas doesn’t press, other than their shoulders leaning steadily into one another. He smells like sandalwood today, a deep and earthy scent, and Dean wants nothing more than to turn his head to bury his nose in the soft hair above his ear, let his lips graze the top of the shell and feel Cas shiver the way he always does.

He doesn’t do that, though. He takes what’s meant to be a steadying breath, and isn’t. “Okay. So, after high school, I had two choices: I could either go to college, or I could go into the marines. I already knew I was gay, but under my parents’ roof, there was no way. And I knew that it wasn’t gonna get any better if I went into the military, so, college it was.”

Cas shifts so that he can look into Dean’s face more easily, the hand from his waist rubbing full-palmed circles at the dip of his spine. “And at first, it was great,” Dean says. “I mean, I was free. I could do what I wanted. I could finally—you know.”

“Kiss boys?”

Dean nods. Feels a burn across his nose and pinches his eyes with his fingers. “But they found out,” he says. “Middle of Sophomore year, some piece of LGBT club mail went to my home address or something. After that, my dad started snooping my email, my texts, everything. And he didn’t like what he found. He found out about the drugs and the parties, found out about the gay thing.” It’s getting easier to say. “And my dad came down on me like a hammer on a screw.”

“I don’t think that’s how screws work,” Cas says.

“No, but he was damn well gonna try,” Dean says. “Said if I didn’t clean up my act, they’d pull my college funding and send me straight to boot camp, and if that didn’t work—well.”

“So you cleaned up your act,” Cas says. “But why…”

“Why’d I stay that way after?” Cas nods. Dean sighs and rubs his eyes again. “Damn sunset’s too bright to be looking at,” he says, even though he knows Cas won’t buy it for a second. “If it had just been my dad, that would have been one thing. But my mom—they always kinda did the good cop, bad cop thing with me. And my mom was just. Very concerned for my safety.”

Cas’s head tilts in confusion.

“She’d send me articles,” he said. “Constantly. Like, I think she went trawling for them every weekend, about kids getting beat up or shot or whatever for being gay. She’d send me statistics about suicide rates and—” His voice breaks.

“Oh, Dean.”

“Then one time,” Dean ploughs onward, because now that he’s started he has to finish. “One time, it hit a little too close to home. The guy was at my school, he was someone I knew. Someone I’d—one of the guys I made out with at a party once. We almost went on a date.”

Cas’s arm tightens around him, keeping him steady.

“After that, I just—I couldn’t. I had to get out. Changed schools to somewhere where no one knew me. Didn’t talk to anybody from Pacific until Charlie found me. And after that, it was just… just easier. I got the job at Sandover, I bought the duplex. Got myself all settled into this life, and there just wasn’t any room in it for”—he gestures at the two of them.

For a long moment, Cas rubs his back and doesn’t say anything. “That’s fucked up.”

It startles a laugh out of Dean. “Yeah. Yeah, pretty much.”

“How are things with them now?”

Dean shrugs. “We don’t talk much. They’re halfway across the country, so it’s easy to not see them. Christmas is kind of awkward.”

Cas nods. Then, as if it were just that simple, “Do you want there to be?”

“Be what?”

“Room in your life for love.” 

Dean feels a cracking in his throat. “It’s not—I mean.” Breathing is hard. Words are harder. “Shit.”

Cas’s rubbing hand grips one shoulder, half affection, half solidarity. “Dean, listen to me. If you take anything away from the last few weeks, I want it to be this: That there is room in your life for whatever you want to have in it. You’re an adult; no one’s going to send you to boot camp anymore. There’s no reason why you can’t be Dean Smith, Assistant Sales Manager, and also Dean Smith, openly gay man. Your life doesn’t belong to your parents; it’s yours.” 

Dean’s throat feels like he’s tried to swallow barbed wire. “I don’t know how,” he says.

“Baby steps,” Cas says. “You’ve been doing admirably so far.”

Dean laughs, a small, bitter thing.

“I mean it,” Cas insists. “You’ve come so far in so short a time. Inertia is a powerful force. It’s kept you in one place for a very long time, but now that you’re moving, it will be much easier to keep moving.”

“Yeah.”

He’s quiet for a moment, and then, “I know we haven’t known each other very long. But for whatever my opinion is worth, I believe that you are a good man who deserves love in his life.”

Dean has to bite down on a scoff, but there’s a pull in his heart, like a hook behind his sternum drawing him onward. He wants that. Stronger than ever, he feels the urge to drop his head on Cas’s shoulder, to press kisses into his hair, to gather him up in his arms.

Instead, he sniffs against the dampness in his eyes. Takes in a deep breath and lets it out, shaky and slow. 

“Sorry,” he says. 

“Why? I asked.”

“Not exactly what I had in mind when I brought you out here.”

Cas’s hand resumes its long, slow circles over Dean’s back. “Have you ever told anyone what happened?”

Dean shakes his head. Even Charlie only knows the bare bones of it.

“Thank you for telling me.”

“Thanks for listening.”

“It’s what I’m here for,” Cas says.

Dean laughs, a little more humor in it this time, and arches his shoulders under Cas’s hand, popping his spine. “What about you?” he asks.

“What about me?”

“You said you used to work for the state. Masters degree and all that.”

“Oh,” Cas says. “It’s not that interesting, really.”

“Come on,” Dean says with a nudge. “I spilled my guts, it’s only fair.”

Cas raises an eyebrow at him, a dark sweep in the just-fading light, and he leans in close. His next words come out as little puffs of air against Dean’s neck. “I thought you didn’t come out here to talk.”

A shiver runs down Dean’s back at the low drop of Cas’s voice, down into the well of desire, but he pushes back, determined. “You gotta give me somethin’, man,” he says, and leans away so he can see Cas’s face again.

He’s frowning, a grumpy squint between his brows. “I decided I was done with being a part of the system that had caused so many of the problems I set out to fix,” he says. His voice is hard, pinging like pebbles before an avalanche. “So I left.”

“Simple as that?” Dean says.

“Simple as that.”

“Huh.”

Cas tugs on him with the hand still around his waist, pulling him in and tucking his nose and lips up under Dean’s chin. “I told you it wasn’t that interesting.”

Dean bites his lip. He wants to ask more. He’s certain that’s not really all there is to the story. But he doesn’t want to push too hard, and Cas’s lips really do feel amazing against the hollow of his throat. He tilts his head back and lets Cas explore, and from there it’s all hot breath and goosebumps racing over his skin, the heat of Cas’s lips and tongue, his solid frame under Dean’s clenching hands.

“It’s cold out here,” Cas murmurs after a brief eternity, and Dean opens his eyes to realize that the sunset has faded and the stars are starting to prick the sky.

“Car?” he asks, already breathless. Cas hums in agreement, and it’s a quick scramble off the hood, squeaky doors opening and slamming shut, and then he’s back in Cas’s arms. Dean slides so that the steering wheel isn’t digging into his side, maneuvers them so that Cas is straddling his lap—with only one unfortunate impact of skull against the car’s low roof—and then he’s lost. Cas is heavy in the best way, holding him tight to the bench seat, enveloping him in sandalwood scent and body heat. Through his tank top, under his denim shorts, Dean’s hands trace over smooth, hot skin and muscles that move like cords under cloth. His hands are everywhere: in Dean’s hair, tugging at his collar, thumbs pulling at the spaces between the buttons of his shirt like he desperately wants inside. He’s been doing that a lot the last few times they’ve done this. Dean wishes he would just tear his shirt open, buttons be damned. He wants those hands on his skin, those strong, nimble fingers and broad palms exploring his chest.

Belatedly, it occurs to him that he has the power to make that happen. He pulls his hands off Cas’s body—difficult—and breaks the kiss to fumble with the buttons of his own shirt.

“Dean,” Cas groans, dropping his head to kiss Dean’s neck under the ear while he works. It doesn’t make it any easier.

“Fuck,” Dean gasps when Cas finds just the right spot to send little shivering waves radiating over his skin. As soon as there’s room, Cas is helping push his shirt off his shoulders. There’s still the undershirt, but that is dealt with even quicker—why is the Impala’s roof so _low_ , this would really be easier with some headroom—then Dean gets what he wants. Cas scoots a little so that he can look down at Dean’s chest with star-bright eyes and a hungry mouth. 

“Why do you have to be so perfect?” he grumbles, and Dean grins.

“You’re one to talk,” Dean says, tugging on Cas’s loose tank top. It’s a mere suggestion of a shirt compared to his own usual layers, but he still wants it gone. “C’mon,” he says, nudging.

The shirt vanishes in another tangle of arms and hair, and then Dean gets to know Cas’s skin, all of it, from waist to neck to wrist. He clutches him greedily, pressing their bodies together, burying his nose in Cas’s throat and breathing him in, all of him.

“Lie down,” Cas murmurs, lifting himself so that Dean can wriggle into position. It’s cramped—their legs don’t really have anywhere to go and Dean’s head is butted up against the door, but then Cas works his way _between_ Dean’s legs, wrapping them around his waist, and that just sends all kinds of fireworks zooming up and down his bloodstream. To have his legs spread, to have a man kneeling between them, oh _fuck—_

Cas kisses him again, and Dean’s whole body arches up to meet him. His heart is hammering like crazy against his ribs, and the leather seat is cold on the prickling sweat of his back before it warms to meet him. His cock is so hard in his trousers, he feels like he’s about to burst a seam; the stiff jut of Cas’s answering erection in his jeans is a temptation to sin. Whenever they touch, _there_ , right _there_ , it’s like stirring honey into hot water, melting and sweet all the way through Dean’s body, Cas’s heavy breath like steam on the surface.

“Cas,” Dean groans as generous lips and stubble trace lines of fire under his collarbone. “I meant it, you know.”

Cas pauses just north of his nipple. “Meant what?”

“What I was texting you about. The other night when I was drunk.”

He feels Cas’s smile, feels the little puff of air when he laughs. “Is this about the ducks?”

“Oh, fuck you,” Dean groans.

“We can do that, too.” Cas’s hand is on his belly; Dean’s muscles twitch under the touch.

“I mean—yes, definitely, but I—I want—”

“Have you ever penetrated yourself?” Cas asks as he grazes his mouth around Dean’s nipple.

“Jesus Christ. Yes.”

“Fingers?”

“Fingers, a couple toys. I’m not that repressed.”

“That’s the funniest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Shut up.”

“I’m glad you’re open to new experiences.”

“Look, if you’re just gonna make fun of me—”

“Your place, or mine?”

Dean’s heart jumps like he just touched a live wire. “Uh, I don’t care.”

“I have some preparations I’d like to make.”

“Okay, yours, then. Or Anna’s, I guess.”

Cas just hums against his skin and strokes his hand up and down Dean’s sides, the occasional scrape of fingernails adding an extra zing to the sensation. Dean tangles his fingers in Cas’s hair, pulling even as he holds Cas tight to his chest and squeezes his hips between his legs.

He doesn’t want to let go.

Slowly, like a bonfire dimming down to coals, Cas walks them back. He pulls his hips away from where Dean’s are still restlessly circling, retraces his path back up to kiss his lips. Their kisses, now, are shallow and brushing, and no less mesmerizing for it. Every time they do this, they’ve been getting closer and closer to the point of no return, and it’s been getting more and more difficult to back away. Now—now they’re making actual plans, and Cas has _preparations_ to make, whatever that means, and Dean feels like he’s about to go flying off a cliff. But still, they slow.

“We should go before the rent-a-cops come around,” Cas says, his words buzzing against Dean’s tingling lips.

“Yeah,” Dean sighs. “I guess.”

Neither of them move. 

“You have to get off me first,” Dean says eventually, still clutching tight with his arms and legs.

Cas sighs, a grumpy little growl that gets Dean giggling. “I know, the injustice of the world,” he says, and Cas gives him a squinty glare.

“You have no idea,” Cas says, pulling back with exaggerated reluctance. All the places where their bodies have been pressed together feel cold in his absence.

“I have some idea,” Dean says. “C’mon. Where the fuck did my shirts go?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a forewarning, I'm not sure how next week's chapter is going to go, since I will be on vacation and in an area with limited (but not none) internet access. Hopefully I'll have it ready to go before I leave and it will just take a press of a button, but there is a chance of delay.
> 
> Don't worry. It will be worth the wait.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, folks! I had a wonderful vacation ^__^ I hope this makes up for it >:)

Dean’s palm sweats on the cool glass of the wine bottle. As he knocks on the door, the weight of it feels stupid. This isn’t a date. They both know why he’s here. And he can feel his pulse against the tie around his neck. Why had he even bothered? With any luck, that tie is going to end up on the floor in about five minutes.

He straightens right up when Cas opens the door. He’s dressed up, too—for Cas, anyway. A tight black T-shirt and a pair of worn jeans, threadbare at the seams and looking soft enough to sleep in. The T-shirt shows off the definition of his shoulders and chest, biceps mostly bare, and the V-neck dips low enough for a tease of collarbone. Dean’s fingers itch to touch, and the idea that he  _ can, _ that he  _ will, _ has him licking his lips and swallowing hard. Yeah, he really needs his tie to come off, and soon.

Suddenly aware that he’s staring, Dean yanks his gaze up from Cas’s chest to his face, but Cas is staring, too. Openly. With parted lips and his eyes trained on Dean’s—collar?

Without even making eye contact, Cas reaches out and grips Dean’s tie in those—god,  _ beautiful _ fingers, right below the knot. He draws close, so close Dean thinks he’s about to get kissed right there on their front stoop, and Jesus, his heart is hammering like a whole construction site. But he stops, close enough that Dean could count the flecks of indigo in the sky blue of his irises.

“Hello, Dean,” he says, voice throaty and low. That has to be deliberate.

“Hey,” Dean says, just managing not to squeak.

Cas doesn’t kiss him, but he does pull—more like a slow step backwards with his grip still tight on Dean’s tie—and Dean follows the gentle pressure over the threshold. The door clicks closed behind him.

In the low light, Dean can see the heat in Cas’s eyes. “I brought wine,” he says, and curses his idiot tongue.

Cas smiles, and Dean chooses to believe it’s affection, not coddling. “Thank you,” he says, and takes it from Dean’s numb fingers. Probably good, because Dean was in very real danger of dropping the bottle, and they don’t need spilled wine and broken glass to add excitement to the evening.

Cas places the bottle on the hall table, his eyes never leaving Dean’s face, then drifts closer. He takes both of Dean’s hands by the wrist and places them on his own body—at the waist, trim and soft, the shirt like butter between his hands and Cas’s warm skin—and wraps his own arms around Dean’s shoulders. One hand slides up to the back of his neck and pulls him down until their lips meet.

It’s nothing they haven’t been doing for the last few weeks, but the knowledge that tonight it’s  _ going somewhere _ sends an all-new fire zinging through Dean’s bloodstream. But it’s still Cas’s lips guiding Dean’s through a slow, tender exploration. It’s Cas’s breath on his cheeks, Cas’s strong jaw and straight nose nudging at Dean’s, his stubble rasping in a way that steals the air from Dean’s lungs.

When Cas pulls back, he’s smiling into the small space between their lips, and it’s blinding from point blank range. “Can you relax, now?” he asks.

Dean does his best. He takes a deep breath full of Cas’s earthy, spicy aroma and, as he lets it out, tries to drop some of the tension from his muscles. The butterflies don’t go away, but they do calm down, and he rolls his neck from side to side. It cracks, the kind of crack that leaves his head feeling like it’s about to bobble right off. “Oh man,” he says, “Oh, I needed that.”

“Was it good for you?” Cas says, giving a wink before he grabs the wine bottle and heads to the kitchen.

They make small talk as Cas uncorks the wine, and Dean feels himself settling into the familiarity of their banter. Cas lets Dean pour, which is good, because Dean knows what he’s doing with wine, and Cas… does not. As they drink, Cas gravitates closer again, until they’re both sitting on the tall stools next to the kitchen island with their knees slotted together and Cas’s fingers stroking the buttoned cuff at Dean’s wrist. He slips one thumb under the fabric to rub it between his fingers, and the hair on Dean’s arm stands on end.

Dean’s pretty sure he’s in the middle of a story when Cas finally says, “Let’s go upstairs,” but he’ll be damned if he can remember what it was.

“Yeah, okay,” he says, and follows the round perfection of Cas’s ass in those jeans up the stairs to Anna’s bedroom.

Dean’s never been up here before. The lighting is low—not candles, thank goodness, Dean’s not sure he could have handled that, but from the light of two sconce lamps on either side of the bed. The whole room is done in shades of purple: eggplant carpet, lavender walls, deep violet duvet and sheets. Dean’s not sure Cas would have chosen these colors for himself, but looking at him here, now, bathed in the soft light, it suits him. When Cas presses play on a small speaker, the air fills with soulful guitar and slow stir of drums that Dean recognizes instantly.

“Bad Company,” he says. “Nice.”

“I thought you’d appreciate it,” Cas says, drawing closer again and sipping his wine.

“You didn’t have to do all this.”

“All what?” Cas asks, eyebrows raised, all innocence.

Dean can’t really answer that, so he just stands in the middle of the room like a gormless imbecile, gulping at his wine.

“Here,” Cas says, taking the glass and setting it on the dresser. “Let’s get comfortable.”

Then Cas is kissing him again, and now there’s a bed right fucking there, and it hits Dean like a ton of bricks. This is actually happening, and it’s happening with  _ Cas.  _ With this gorgeous, kind-hearted oddball of a man, and Dean had better start making the most of it.

So he opens his mouth against Cas’s, pushes forward just a fraction, darts his tongue out when Cas opens up with a noise of surprise. Dean savors those little sounds he makes. He knows better than to go straight for the tonsils, but this is  _ Cas _ , and once he gets his tongue inside—once he tastes the particular flavor of his mouth—his brain shorts out. Dean is still running mostly on enthusiasm and instinct, but he’s picked up a few tricks, he thinks, and he uses them all now: the swirl of his tongue behind Cas’s teeth that steals the breath from his chest, the hand at the back of his head that makes his body go loose. He lets his hands roam where they want, skimming the planes and angles of Cas’s back through his T-shirt, touching everywhere he can easily reach, flirting giddily with the top of his jeans and the hem of his shirt.

Cas pulls back. He goes too far for Dean to follow, even though he tries, and  _ shushes _ as if Dean were an excited horse. “Hey—Slow. We have all night.”

Dean’s face heats up; he hopes the light is too low for Cas to see. “Sorry,” he says, hands stilling on Cas’s belt loops. His hips feel so good under those jeans.

“Don’t be. That was—” Cas stops to suck in a telling breath, sliding his hands slowly up Dean’s arms over the crinkles of his shirtsleeves. “I just want to take my time.”

There’s a flicker of something in how Cas says that, in the way his eyes shutter, that snags like a thorn in Dean’s brain. But then Cas is kissing him again and that brief hitch of concern eases away under the sweet-hot glide of his lips, the flick of his tongue, the grip of his hands on the elastic of Dean’s suspenders. In spite of his assertion that he wants to go slow, Cas’s grunt against Dean’s lips is urgent and impatient. Dean’s fingers flex against his hips, tingling and useless.

“It was your suits that first caught my eye, you know,” Cas says, buzzing against Dean’s lips. One hand tugs at his suspenders and snaps it against his chest with a sharp stinging  _ thwick. _

“Yeah?”

“Mmhmm.” He’s pushing the suspenders down, now, off Dean’s shoulders and over his arms. “Someone as buttoned-up and straight-laced as you... It’s a hell of a temptation.”

Dean’s body flushes with heat from head to toe. “Yeah,” he sighs, then he chuckles against Cas’s lips. “Can you believe I thought you were straight for a while?”

Cas pulls away to give him a look of sharp incredulity. “I’d be insulted if I weren’t so surprised.”

Dean shrugs, still grinning. He doesn’t want to bring the girl into this—the girl Cas had had over here, in this very bed, maybe with this music and these soft lights. It twists his gut the wrong way to think about, and he’d only just gotten them twisting the right way. “It’s probably the only reason I agreed to go with you to the river.”

Cas’s head cocks to one side, confused. Dean realizes they’re swaying together to the strains of Ready for Love, not quite dancing.

“If you were straight, it didn’t matter how hot you were,” Dean says. “You were off limits. I could lust after you all I wanted and it wouldn’t get anywhere.”

Cas blinks. “Is that what you wanted?” he asks, and Dean knows him well enough by now to know that it’s not really a question. He just wants to make Dean say it.

“Nah,” he says. “This is better.” And in a moment of decisiveness, he lifts the hem of Cas’s T-shirt. Cas gets the memo and raises his arms, letting Dean pull the shirt off and toss it aside. “You’re fucking gorgeous, you know that, right?” Dean says to his chest.

“Thank you,” Cas says, tugging too hard at the knot of his tie. “You—are wearing too many layers.”

Dean whips his tie off over his head, and then his hands fumble with his buttons at his collar while Cas pulls his shirttails from his slacks. They meet in the middle, only to be foiled by the undershirt. Dean laughs at Cas’s frustrated little huff.

“I thought you liked the suits?”

“I do. But now I want what’s under them.” His voice dips low and dark, almost a growl, and that goes directly to Dean’s dick. He’s hard enough to press against the fly of his trousers, and he can’t get his shirts off fast enough.

He’s still wrestling the shirt off his arms when Cas’s hands slide in rivers of fire up his belly to his chest, then around his back to pull him in close. Cas kisses him again, deep and salacious, with their bare chests sliding together in a cascade of hot sparks. Cas has just the sparsest dusting of tight, dark curls right across the middle of his pectorals, and the scratch of it is unexpectedly electric.

It’s not until Cas takes a step back that Dean realizes he’s been rubbing up against him and moaning like a cat in heat for who knows how long. He can feel his nipples, tight and perky; he follows Cas’s backward step without meaning to.

“You are testing my patience,” Cas says, voice nearly a growl. 

“What’s there to be patient for?” Dean asks, angling in again. Kissing Cas is addictive, and he’s already craving it.

Cas stops him with a finger on his lips. “I have plans,” he says. “Have you ever had a massage?”

Dean blinks. Trying to get his brain back in his skull is a fool’s errand with Cas’s broad fingertip so close to his tongue. “Uh. Once? Company retreat. There were hot stones and really pointy fingers.”

“Hm,” Cas says, pulling his hand away. “I think I can do better than that.”

“Sure. Sounds great.” Sounds like Cas touching him, which is all kinds of good right now.

Cas leans back in for a brief, closed-mouth kiss. “Get comfortable on the bed. Face down,” he says. “You’ll probably want to take off your pants.” Then Cas steps toward a vanity on the other side of the room. 

Dean’s hands are trembling again as he opens his belt and fly and drops his slacks to the floor. Once they’re off, he picks them up and smooths out the creases, looks around for a flat spot to lay them out before giving up and dropping them to the floor. The jut of his hard cock is obscene in his gray boxer briefs; he adjusts himself so that he’s pointing more straight up, tucked into the elastic. He’s still adjusting himself, squeezing a little longer and harder than necessary, when he notices Cas staring, back still turned but making no secret of peeking over his shoulder.

“Sorry,” Dean says, forcing his hand away from his erection.

He watches Cas lick his lips, straighten his shoulders, pray for strength. “Don’t be sorry,” he says, gruff. “Just get on the bed.”

Dean does. The covers have been turned back, so it’s cool, crisp, clean sheets he lays himself down on. The mattress is not quite as soft as it looks, some firm core providing support, but that’s fine by Dean. He pillows his head on his arms and tries not to grind against the bed.

One ear trained on Cas’s shuffling feet on the carpet, Dean hears him approach the bed, then stop. Dean waits a beat, but Cas doesn’t move. Dean cracks an eye, cranes his neck to look over his shoulder. “Something wrong?”

Cas is staring, but his gaze is directed lower than Dean might have expected—hoped—and his expression is one of barely contained laughter. Dean strains to lift his head up even higher, looking down at his own—

Son of a bitch.

“Shut up,” Dean says, squirming onto his back and pulling one knee up to his chest so he can get at his socks. And sock  _ suspenders _ . Rookie move. 

“I didn’t say anything,” Cas says. “You can leave them, if you like.”

Dean would not like. “There’s nothing sexy about sock suspenders, dude.” He tells himself he’s not pouting and keeps fumbling with the buckles.

Cas’s hand lands on his other calf, and he startles. “May I?” Cas asks.

Dean lets his legs fall back to straight, suspender half-undone. “Uh. Sure.”

Cas’s hands are careful, dextrous as he slides them between the elastic and Dean’s skin. Dean can’t take his eyes off him. The way he’s kneeling at the foot of the bed makes Dean himself feel weirdly vulnerable, but since he’s braced himself on his elbows, he can’t do anything to cover his near-nakedness, and that probably wouldn’t help anyway. He just has to lie there while this beautiful man gently, oh so gently, unsnaps his garters, loosens them, and slides them down his legs, taking his silk dress socks with them. Shivers and goosebumps race up his thighs to his cock, and he sucks in a tight breath.

Then he feels Cas’s lips, the roughness of his stubble, pressed right to the tender arch of his foot. His toes curl under Cas’s firm hand.

It’s while lying on his back that he realizes that there is one candle in the room: burning softly under an oil warmer on the bedside table.

Son of a bitch.

“I beg to differ,” Cas says, rolling the other sock off and pressing another kiss to the inside of his knee.

“Shit—” He almost arches up off the bed. Cas’s lips feel like a brand, and they are  _ very _ close to his groin. (They’re not, actually, but what’s several inches of bow-legged thigh to a man who’s aching for his first touch?)

“Too much?” Cas asks, lips still buzzing against Dean’s skin. Dean can feel the puff of his breath, the low timber of his voice.

“Nah,” he says, and it’s mostly true. “Just startled me.”

Cas hums against his skin and presses a few more kisses there—first dry and soft, then open-mouthed, the damp heat of his breath and body igniting goosebumps up Dean’s inner thigh, and just one with a bright edge of teeth—and then he backs off.

“This wasn’t the plan,” he grumbles, a huffy, self-directed annoyance clear on his face. “Turn over.”

Dean flashes a cheeky grin as he rolls himself on his front, tucking a pillow under his chest. “You getting ahead of yourself?” he asks, wiggling his rump. Just trying to get comfy. Really.

Then all at once, Cas leans over him, a hot wall of human body—Dean’s awareness is locked on him like a rabbit’s on a wolf—looming at his back. Dean gets an up-close glimpse of his muscley arm where he braces himself on the bed.

“I told you you were tempting,” Cas growls, very close to Dean’s ear.

He’s moving away again before Dean has a chance to get used to his proximity, and Dean reaches under himself as discreetly as possible to make sure his cock is pointing the right direction.

Finally, Cas swings a leg over Dean’s hips and settles down on his ass. Dean hadn’t realized he’d shucked his jeans, and he’s a little sorry he missed the moment.

“Is this okay?” Cas asks, settling down on Dean’s hips. Dean’s attention zeroes in on the shape of the bulge pressed against his ass, but the contact feels more incidental than sexual. For now, at least.

“Uh-huh,” Dean replies. It’s remarkably comfortable, and the weight of Cas pressing him into the mattress feels… solid. Grounding.

“Let me know if you need to move at all,” Cas says, and Dean feels him stretch out over him again to grab the oil off the warmer.

It’s fragrant, like almonds and something spicy-sweet, and it’s pleasantly hot when it pools in the center of Dean’s back. Then Cas’s hands—firm but nimble, square and strong—smooth the oil all around Dean’s shoulders and low back in swooping figure-eight patterns. A few long, slow rubs, and Dean starts to melt into the pillows with a sigh. Cas doesn’t try to force his way in past Dean’s habitual stiffness, doesn’t try to pinpoint Dean’s chi blockages or whatever. He just rubs, steady and relentless, leaning his strength into Dean’s muscles until he’s pliant, like warm clay. Only then does he zero in on specific targets: Dean’s traps, tight from long hours over a computer. His lats, never as limber as he wanted them to be. A moment of shifting, sliding off Dean’s ass to straddle his thighs, and then he’s working on Dean’s lumbar curve, tight and riddled with knots, which Cas’s palms circle and unwind with diffuse precision.

It’s only after Dean has been thoroughly turned into putty that Cas hesitates.

“May I?” Cas asks. It takes a second before Dean’s mind wakes up enough to register the touch hovering at the elastic of his boxers.

Dean remembers being nervous, but right now, it’s a distant, muted flicker. “Mmhmm,” he sighs. “Go ‘head.”

Cas takes Dean’s boxers in both hands, tugging them down over the round, plush curve of his ass. He doesn’t move to pull them all the way off, which is good because Dean is a puddle and would be of absolutely no assistance. He leaves them bunched around the tops of Dean’s thighs, caught on the heaviness of his cock, which has gone quiet but never fully soft.

Cas hovers his hands over the newly bared skin, ghosting just above the surface for a pass or two before settling down, two hot, oily handprints, one on each cheek. The first wave of tension in several minutes ripples over Dean’s body.

New territory, again. Dean relaxes deliberately, reaching for the calm, near-sleeping trance that Cas lulled him into, and— 

—and his hands feel incredible. Cas lets them rove from lower back, down the flanks of Dean’s hips and glutes to the barrier of boxers at the top of his thighs, and back up. He cups handfuls of flesh along the way, pulling, kneading. Dean hadn’t even known it was possible to carry tension in his ass, but apparently—

He giggles. A single, involuntary, high-pitched giggle. Cas’s hands don’t even slow down.

“What’s so funny?” Cas asks, and it sounds like he’s smiling, too.

“Nothin’,” Dean says, and the fluttering in his belly feels a lot more like giddiness, now, than nerves. “Feels good.”

“That is the point,” Cas murmurs, and then he’s sliding from Dean’s thighs down to straddle his calves. He keeps up the rolling touch, circling ever inward toward Dean’s vulnerable center. The stretch and pull of skin and muscle around Dean’s hole feels like the slow sweetness of honey, and as the circles wind tighter, closer, Dean’s heartrate kicks up, his dick plumps up against the mattress again, hips fidgeting in anticipation— 

Cas is bending low. Dean can feel him, tracks his descent, and with a bare second to spare, recognizes his target. Then there’s hot breath on the open spread of his hole, and lips, the most intimate kiss he’s ever known.

He yelps, twitching under the touch.

“Okay?” Cas asks, not giving him an inch, but not pressing forward either.

“Yeah,” he pants, a good deal higher-pitched than usual, but emphatic. He’s glad he was so relaxed because he might have otherwise jumped right out of his skin. “Just. A little warning next time?”

“My apologies,” Cas says, although he doesn’t sound the least bit sorry. At once, he’s dipping back in to tease at the crack of Dean’s ass again.

It’s… not as intense as Dean had hoped it would be. Once the shock factor has worn off, it mostly just feels wet. But the rasp of Cas’s stubble, the brush of his breath, the grip of his hands holding Dean’s cheeks open, the weight of his body on Dean’s legs—all of it combined with the soft touch of his tongue has Dean shifting restlessly under him before he even knows what’s hitting him. His cock is still trapped under the elastic of his boxers, but he grinds it against the mattress anyway. He’s whimpering pathetic little noises, his face beet red, locking up tight after all that careful relaxation because, as much as he’s enjoying this—and dear  _ god _ is he enjoying this—it can’t actually be that fun to have your tongue on someone else’s asshole. He wonders if he should tell Cas he doesn’t have to, that they can do something else, but every time he thinks he’s about to say something, Cas flicks his tongue in a new way and the words are scattered out of Dean’s brain like a swirl of dust in a sunbeam.

Then Cas shifts on Dean’s legs, and Dean doesn’t know how he didn’t feel it before, but now he has what can only be the length and weight of Cas’s hard cock nudging against his ankles. The soft punch of Cas’s groan against Dean’s asshole goes straight up Dean’s spine, heat flooding his pelvis, breath stolen from his lungs.

“That,” he pants with what’s left of his air. “That, yeah— _ shit—” _ He can’t get more words out, but Cas just laughs darkly against his hole.

“Feel good?” Cas asks. At the same time, he rolls his hips just a little, just enough that Dean feels the distinct shape of his hardon rubbing between his calves.

“Uh-huh,” he moans. “You—you like doing this?”

“Eating ass?” Cas rolls his hips again, harder, not bothering to be subtle anymore. He runs a long, luxurious lick from Dean’s perineum all the way up to the top of his ass crack. “I love it.”

A shiver races from Dean’s tailbone to nape and back again. “Why?” he asks, then wants to snatch the word back into his mouth. “I mean—not that I—I mean, uh, you—”

“Relax,” Cas says with a smile Dean can feel as he moves to kiss the round of Dean’s ass cheek. His hands let go of where they’ve been spreading him open to pet over and over his hips. “Do you have any idea how sensitive your mouth is?”

Dean swallows a sudden flood of saliva. “No.”

Cas pets closer to the center again, one thumb dipping against the hollow at Dean’s center, slick with spit. He doesn’t press hard, but Dean feels like he’s been struck by lightning.

“Would you like to find out?”

“Huh?” Dean’s brain is one shock away from a short circuit.

“You said you wanted to suck my cock,” Cas says, and Dean’s thoughts lurch into motion again. That. Yes. Yes, that.

“Yeah, okay,” he says wriggling up onto his elbows.

When Dean rolls over, Cas rises up to halfway-standing, one knee still on the bed and a hand cradling the bulge in his boxers. Dean struggles briefly with his own boxers still tight around his hips. “Friggin’—” he shoves at them, clumsy with haste. Cas helps, and before Dean is really aware of what’s happening, he finds himself naked in front of another person outside of the gym for the first time in his adult life.

He doesn’t have time to be precious about it, though. His mouth is already watering, and he scoots to the foot of the bed to find himself face to face with the full length of Cas’s near-nudity. He lets his gaze sweep up, up, up his toned stomach and chest, his blue eyes burnished with lust and staring down at Dean. Cas’s lips are luscious and open, slick with his own saliva, and the hand cupped around his cock pulls just enough to outline the shape of him through the soft black cloth. The other hand reaches out to card through Dean’s hair. Dean has to part his knees around Cas’s legs so that he can get closer, and that—that’s something else.

“Look at you,” Cas murmurs. “You’re so gorgeous.”

Dean scoffs. He’s naked and awkward and has no idea what he’s doing, but, sure. If Cas wants to call him gorgeous right now, he’s not going to complain. He’ll take the crumbs of his affection.

“Just tell me what to do, okay?” Dean mutters, licking his lips and planting his hands on Cas’s thighs just above the knee. The muscles are firm, the dusting of hair slightly scratchy on his palms as he slides his hands up to meet the cloth. Cas’s eyes go even darker, and he bites down on his lip. At close range, Dean sees Cas’s hand tighten on his own cock before he moves it away.

“I can do that,” he says. “Take off my boxers.”

Both of Cas’s hands settle on Dean’s shoulders as he carefully eases Cas’s boxers off his hips, clumsily over his erection. 

And there it is. Cas’s cock. Standing proudly from the clutch of tight, neat curls, balls drawn up behind, heavy and thick and absolutely undeniable. But what Dean didn’t count on was the  _ scent _ of him. The aroma of his sweat and musk, not bad at all, just oh-so-very human. Mouthwateringly human. He wants to bury his face in it and never have to look anyone in the eye ever again. Least of all Cas.

“Start slow,” Cas says, petting Dean’s hair away from his face and giving just the tiniest encouraging pull. “Hold at the base with one hand. Don’t worry about going deep. Just feel.”

Dean nods, scoots a little closer, gets one hand in position. He gives Cas’s cock a curious little stroke, much like he’d give himself, but from the wrong angle. Cas’s stomach muscles tense and he huffs through his nose, and it’s heartening. Enough so that Dean leans in with an open mouth—wider than he thought he’d have to, what feels like an obscene stretch—around his cock’s fat tip.

“Ah—” Cas sighs again, heavier now, as Dean rolls his tongue around the head. It tastes like skin, mostly, and salt, and he wasn’t sure what else he was expecting, but the shape of it, the texture, fills his mouth and sits on his tongue like something sweet. He opens wider, trying to find room for it in his mouth, pressing his tongue up against the underside in a way that makes Cas’s fingers grip against his scalp. He’s tried this on dildos, but they were rubbery and strange, unyielding in his mouth. Compared to this—to Cas’s blood-firm flesh against his soft palate—they could never compare. They didn’t smell like good clean musk and didn’t come with fingers curling into tight little clutches on his shoulders. Didn’t pulse with life and heat or leak tiny beads of saltwater. Dean opens his eyes and stares straight up the flat plane of Cas’s stomach and chest. There’s so much skin,  _ so much, _ Dean has trouble believing it all belongs to one person. Cas has his eyes shut, his brow furrowed and his lips open in a soft  _ O _ of pleasure.

He looks so fucking beautiful.

Dean bobs his head.

Cas’s eyes fly open. His fingers scrabble at Dean’s shoulders and the base of his skull, and Dean sees him almost laugh, feels him fighting for air.

“Oh, yeah,” Cas sighs. “Yes, good. Oh, very good, Dean. Use your tongue, please—yeah, just like that. I knew you’d be good at this. Fuck—can you—yes, relax your jaw. Perfect. You’re perfect.” The litany of filth sounds like a prayer, a confession whispered in the dark, and Dean lets it wash over him like a wave of warm water. He clings to Cas like a lift raft, bobbing his head up and down, trying desperately to coordinate his tongue and lips, get some suction going. There’s a loud squelching sound when he gets too much air, and he nearly pulls off in embarrassment—no one told him how  _ noisy _ it is, giving head—but then Cas is holding him still and pushing his hips forward—and then, oh fuck, he’s fucking Dean’s mouth.

Cas is fucking Dean’s mouth.

Not hard, not deep, but the thrusting of his hips and the motion of his cock on Dean’s tongue are undeniable. Dean whines around his mouthful, and one of his hands drops from Cas’s hip to his own cock because he can’t handle not touching anymore. He’s going to drown in pleasure, and they’ve still barely started.

Another few shallow thrusts against Dean’s eager tongue and lips, and Cas’s hands firm on his shoulders. He pulls back, holding Dean away from himself, and Dean whines at the loss. Open-mouthed, he tries to follow, but Cas’s hands keep him in place.

“Ah-ah,” Cas says, sounding just a little out of breath. “Your turn.”

Then Cas drops, suddenly shorter, on his knees between Dean’s legs. He pushes gently at his thighs, parting them with both hands; Dean sucks in a gasp, feeling those hands spread  _ all of him _ wide open. He leans back on both hands, letting himself tremble.

Cas just… looks for a moment, eyes bright as he takes in everything Dean has to offer. Then his hands—fingertips—edge higher and higher, up to the crease where Dean’s thigh meets his hips, and Dean’s cock jerks toward his belly at the promise.

“You have a beautiful cock,” Cas says, and Dean dies a little inside.

“Th-thanks?”

“I’m going to suck you, Dean.”

Eyes screwed shut, Dean nods. “Uh-huh.”

“Do you want that?”

Cas’s fingers are inches away from the base of his dick, son of a god damned bitch— “Yeah, I fuckin’ want that,” he snaps.

The touch crawls closer, pressing in right where hard flesh juts from pelvic mound. “Do you want to come in my mouth?”

Dean is two seconds from bursting out  _ yes, fucking yes, please just touch me— _ but he catches himself just in time. “No.”

Cas’s head tilts, curious.

Dean dips his chin to his chest. “I meant what I said. I want.”

A flicker of a smirk, and then, “You want me to duck you?”

Some of the tension laughs its way out of Dean. “I’m never going to live that down, am I?”

“Never,” Cas promises, and, shit—Dean’s heart thuds sideways.

Not good. Stop that.

Cas’s fingers walk around the base of Dean’s cock, snapping him back to the present. “Should I still—”

“Yes. Yeah. Please.” Dean knows what he wants, but he would be an idiot to pass up the chance for Cas’s mouth.

The next thing he knows is Cas’s long, sure fingers curling around the base of his cock, gentle palm on his balls. His thighs tense, but it’s good, it’s so good—Then Cas’s cool lips press to the underside, just under the head, and it’s better.  _ Fuck _ , Dean can feel his cock stretching, swelling up to kiss him back. He gasps, and keeps gasping as Cas presses wet, salacious kisses all up and down his length. The slick slide of his tongue, the soft rasp of his lips, has Dean burning in moments. The novelty of the sensation lights up his skin like a city map, and he strains for more.

“Watch me, Dean,” Cas says, a little puff of breath against Dean’s frenulum, and Dean looks. Looks straight into Cas’s wide blue eyes as his lips part, as Dean’s cock disappears inside his mouth.

It’s like being dropped in a too-hot bath, all wet heat, suction—Dean’s not sure if he’s about to come or about to be flayed alive. He bites down hard and tenses up tight, trying, trying to hold back, to hold himself together—

Abruptly, it’s all gone. “Dean,” Cas says, still way too close to the saliva-wet head of his dick. “Relax.”

“Can’t,” Dean grunts.

“Give me your hand.”

Dean has been leaning on his palms, so removing one hand means he has to either fall backward or lean forward. He chooses backward, flopping against the bead. His cock sways drunkenly against his belly, infuriatingly less hard than it was a minute ago. A cold wash of shame passes over him even as he grabs Cas’s hand and holds on tight.

“Sorry.”

“The only thing to be sorry for in bed is hurting somebody,” Cas says, giving his fingers a gentle squeeze. “Do I look hurt?”

Dean shrugs, closes his eyes. He’s real tired all of the sudden. Maybe he can just go to sleep. No one told him sex was this exhausting.

Then Cas is kissing his belly, right next to his stupid, disappointing dick. Dean whines feebly, but Cas takes the hand he’s holding and guides it to the base of his own skull. Dean doesn’t open his eyes. Just lets the fingers of both hands card through Cas’s hair while Cas kisses him everywhere. Up his belly to his ribs, down the other side and over the jut of his hip bone to his thighs. He burrows his face into the warm nook of his groin, mouth open, breath steaming. At Cas’s nudging, Dean scoots up farther on the bed and plants his feet on the mattress, eyes still closed, and Cas follows, rewards him by kissing every inch of his inner thighs. He kisses him everywhere except  _ there _ , and Dean’s cock slowly fills back out while he squirms under Cas’s touch, trying and failing to direct him back toward where he’s aching.

“Come on, Cas,” he eventually growls when Cas presses a long, flat lick to the space behind his balls. He gets a warm chuckle, and then his tongue stripes upward, over his sack to the base of his dick, and then all the way up to the tip. He’s stone-hard again, and this time, when Cas’s mouth engulfs him, he’s more ready for it, less tense. It still feels like a suckerpunch of pleasure, but he lets his legs fall open, knees up, lets himself ride the waves nearly to the crest. He follows the bobbing motion of Cas’s head with both hands sunk into his thick hair, lets his fingertips trace the corner of Cas’s jaw and the hollow of his cheeks. When he opens his eyes again, he finds Cas staring up at him, still, even as he works Dean’s cock with his sinful lips.

All at once, Dean’s right on the edge again, abrupt and alarming. He taps Cas frantically on the shoulder, but Cas is already pulling off, running his palms up Dean’s thighs and staring down at him with a wide-eyed, glowing grin that almost looks—proud?

Looking down at him from where he’s kneeled between Dean’s spread thighs.

Oh,  _ fuck. _

Dean whines and opens even wider.

Cas climbs up over him, surrounding him, kisses overwhelming. It’s salty and slick, and Dean takes the chance to wrap his arms and legs all the way around Cas’s shoulders and hips. He can’t stop touching. So much skin on skin, skin in places that usually only feel cloth, and the zinging thrill of their bare cocks pressed together. 

Cas breaks the kiss, and with closed eyes, whispers, “You’re going to be amazing when I fuck you.”

Dean’s heart slams against his ribs, but it’s just the pounding rush of anticipation. “Now?” he asks.

“Yes,” Cas replies, pressing another kiss to his lips. “As soon as possible.”

“Fuck yeah.”

“You’ll have to let go of me first,” Cas says, not unkindly.

“Oh. Right.” Dean does. It’s hard, but he does.

While Cas retrieves lube and a condom from the bedside table, Dean can’t stop himself from shifting and squirming on the bed. His skin feels too small for his body, oversensitized and ready. Cas is a vision as he kneels back between his legs, squeezing a dollop of lube onto his own fingers with his hair a ruined mess, eyes dark, cock arching obscenely from his body. Dean licks his lips. He had that in his mouth. And now it’s going in his ass.

It looks huge. He’s seen bigger in porn, obviously, because everything is bigger in porn, but—

“Fingers first,” Cas says, as if reading his mind. “You will tell me if there is any pain.”

Dean nods, still locked on Cas’s cock.

“Dean.”

Dean looks up. Cas’s face is serious, but bright.

“I will,” Dean promises.

“Good.” Cas sets the lube aside and presses his fingers against Dean’s hole.

The first finger slides in slow and easy, and Dean lights up from the inside.

It’s not so different from Dean’s own fingers, except that it definitely is. The angle is better, for one, not having to hike his leg up to get at his own asshole. And Cas can get deeper, too. Oh fuck, so much deeper; Dean tosses his head back at the blunt piercing, toes curling and legs pedaling in the sheets. But mostly, he can’t stop thinking that these fingers belong to  _ Cas. _ It’s Cas’s body between his legs, Cas staring at his face, into his eyes when Dean lets him. Dean has no idea what he’s looking for, but he must find it, because he smiles around the words, “Good, Dean, so good.” And pushes in with the second finger.

“Ah, fuck,” Dean sighs, working his hips up against Cas’s hand. “That’s good, yeah, Cas, fuck—” Dean is shocked to hear the words from his own mouth, but maybe he shouldn’t be. “I’m good. Please.”

“You sure?” Cas asks. “My cock is not small.”

Dean rolls his eyes the best he can. “Yeah, come on, biggus dickus, get inside me.”

“I love that you made a Monty Python reference with my fingers in your ass,” Cas says, pulling out slowly and reaching for the condom.

Dean tries to keep his heart and brain from going supernova at the casual L-word.

“Ready?” Cas asks, and Dean snaps back to now. Now, where Cas is knee-walking closer, pushing Dean’s thighs up to his chest with an adorable little crease between his eyebrows. “Is this okay? You might be more comfortable if you roll over.”

“It’s good,” Dean chokes out, hooking his hands under his own legs and pulling them back toward his shoulders. His cock touches his belly and leaves a little smear of precome. “Please.”

Cas nods, one lip caught between his teeth, and then he’s right up against Dean’s body, face to face and his slick cock nudging at Dean’s hole. He positions himself carefully, finding Dean’s center, and then just holds there while Dean gets his breath back.

Then there’s the push and pop of the head of Cas’s cock pressing in past the rings of muscle. Dean ignites; he can feel himself start to tense—

“Stay relaxed,” Cas reminds him. His hands soothe up and down the backs of Dean’s thighs, and lubey fingers or no, it helps. “You’re doing so well.”

Dean does relax, and Cas starts to move. He works his hips in luxurious rolls, each thrust pushing deeper, deeper. It’s not quite fucking yet, but it’s getting there. Dean feels tight fullness, a blinding intensity of sensation. He’s bigger than Dean’s simple silicone dildo, that’s for sure, and there’s— _ textures _ . Even through the condom, Dean can feel the slip-slide of skin over flesh. Hard as he is, Cas feels softer than a toy. Hotter, definitely. And he  _ moves _ . God, he moves. Dean thinks he can feel every pulse of Cas’s heart through that one point of connection. And there’s the weight of Cas’s body holding him down, keeping him safe. Dean opens his mouth, but a high, breathless whine is all that escapes. 

All at once, Cas bottoms out, hips snug, balls nestled on Dean’s ass cheeks. Dean pries his eyes open to see him grinning, panting,  _ glowing  _ right down at Dean, braced over him on shaking arms.

“Dean,” he says.

“Uh-huh,” Dean manages.

“I’m inside you.”

“Uh-huh.” Dean trembles from his core to his skin. There is no limit to the ways in which he is royally fucked.

Before Dean can open his mouth and make a damn fool of himself, Cas starts to thrust in earnest. It’s glacially slow at first, like the gentle rocking of waves on the shore. Just a simple, sweet drag of penetration, of pressure, and it’s like a long fuse in Dean’s body, burning right down to his center.

Then, just before Dean snaps at him to stop treating him like he’ll break, Cas adds a little swivel to his hips that has Dean seeing stars.

“Oh,  _ fuck, _ ” he gasps.

“God, Dean,” Cas breathes. “You’re—how does that feel?”

Dean’s eyes pop open. Cas looks—he looks  _ wrecked _ , staring down at Dean in open-eyed wonder, his lips bitten-red and spit-slick. Cas is about to fucking lose it, and it’s all because of Dean, and that thought slingshots Dean’s brain straight into orbit. “Good. Fuck, yeah, good.” He strains his knees up, trying without much success to curl in on himself, to get Cas’s angle deeper. 

“Can I—” Cas is losing his breath quickly. “Faster?”

“Yeah, fuck, please.”

Then Cas is pushing up off his hands and grabbing Dean’s legs behind the knees. He pushes them higher, and with them go his hips, and then—

Holy  _ shit _ . He’d wanted deeper, and that is what he got.

“Ah,  _ fuck _ , Cas, fuck—!” Dean cries out to the heavens, and Cas takes up a swift, pistoning rhythm. Dean can hardly move, pinned as he is into this pretzel shape, but that doesn’t seem to matter one bit. Cas ploughs into him eagerly, sweat on his furrowed brow, chasing his pleasure in Dean’s body. Dean’s cock leaks like a faucet on his belly, but his hands are too busy grabbing at any spare scrap of sheets or pillow he can find to bring himself any closer to the edge. It’s all he can do to lay there and take it, and it’s fucking incredible. Cas’s weight driving him through the mattress, the look of intense, pleasured concentration on Cas’s face, Cas’s cock spearing him open over and over, grinding deep into all the places inside him that  _ need—  _

“Cas—” he whines, and Cas’s eyes fly open.

“Dean,” he growls. “Oh, God, Dean.” He drops one of Dean’s legs, and Dean instantly wraps it around his hip—God  _ damn, _ feeling the movements of Cas’s body like that is like kerosine on Dean’s flame—and puts a hand around Dean’s cock.

It’s all over from there. Cas’s hand pumping at his dick in time with the  _ push-push-push _ of his hips is the catalyst Dean needs to go white-hot from tip to tip. Orgasm punches  _ hard _ , blinding and tight. For several long heartbeats, he’s unaware of anything except his own body and Cas—Cas’s hand milking his cock as it spits and spasms, Cas’s movements slow and hard inside him, Cas’s body between his legs, Cas murmuring filthy encouragement as Dean’s orgasm scours through him.

After a brief eternity, the tense pleasure bleeds out of him, leaving him weightless on the sheets. When he pries his eyes open, Cas is still staring at him, slack-jawed and ruddy-cheeked.

“That was incredible,” Cas says.

Dean lets out a weak laugh. “That’s my line,” he says. He shifts his hips and Cas hisses, biting his lips. “You didn’t—”

Cas twitches a little into Dean’s oversensitive body. “I tried not to,” he says, voice still deep as a gravel pit. “It was difficult. I wanted you to come first.”

Dean squeezes experimentally, and even though Cas still has a look of bliss on his face, the fullness is quickly turning the corner away from pleasure. “N—it’s too much. Sorry.”

Cas nods and disentangles himself, pulling out slowly and tugging the condom off.

“Come here.” Dean is boneless and noodly, but when Cas flops down on the pillows next to him, he rolls into his side and lets one hand gravitate toward his cock. It’s tacky with condom lube, but blood-hot and leaking, velvet skin over wooden hardness. Dean strokes; Cas’s whole body twitches into his touch.

“You don’t have to, I can—”

“Shut up,” Dean cuts him off, then kisses him.

If there’s one thing he knows, it’s how to jerk off a dick. Cas is close anyway; Dean can tell by the way his stomach heaves with his breathing, the way his hips are still rolling in little fucks into Dean’s fist. It feels different than his own cock in his hand, and he obviously doesn’t have the direct feedback, but Dean gets the hang of it quickly, finding the pressure and speed that has Cas gasping underneath him, nodding his chin, “Yes, oh yes, just like that—” and his fingers curling into clutches on Dean’s shoulders, hair, the meat of his arm.

Dean watches Cas’s face. He glances down at his cock, too, but mostly he watches his face, the fan of his lashes on his flushed cheeks, brow furrowed and sheened with sweat in the low light. Dean watches his expression change as he nears the peak of his pleasure, relaxing and then drawing in as his body goes tight as a bowstring. Then he snaps, spills, groaning deep and throaty as his cock swells and throbs in Dean’s hand. Dean tears his gaze away from Cas’s face, then, to watch him come in long streaks over his own stomach and chest, the last few sluggish pulses wet and hot on Dean’s hand. 

He did that. Dean made him come. He shouldn’t be surprised at how exhilarating that is; he can’t stop the grin on his face.

When Cas finally sags against the pillows, Dean sags with him, a heap of sweaty skin and exhausted limbs. There’s an elbow in his ribs, and Dean’s not sure if it’s his own or Cas’s. The places they touch are abruptly hot and sweaty, but he can’t even think of moving yet.

“That was…” Dean trails off. He still hasn’t stopped smiling.

“Yes, it was,” Cas says, turning slitted blue eyes on Dean. There’s a smugness about his lips, and Dean gives him a weak shove, limbs still loose and gooey. A soft, private giggle passes between them, even though Dean’s not really sure what’s funny.

They lay together for several long breaths. The music Dean had forgotten about washes around them, staving off the silence without demanding anything. It’s pleasant. It lulls Dean very near to sleep, but the buzz of Cas’s skin and breathing keeps him awake. He doesn’t want to let go just yet, though it’s nearing inevitable.

“We’re a mess,” Dean manages to point out, even as his jaw cracks on a yawn. His eyes are refusing to stay open.

“Never say I’m a bad boy scout,” Cas says, reaching for the nightstand again.

“Hmm?”

“I always come prepared.”

The cool of a wet wipe on his stomach almost shocks Dean back into wakefulness. Cas cleans him up with lingering efficiency, and Dean just… stares at him, letting himself feel whatever enormous, jittery feeling this is that’s welling inside him. He can’t really name it, and isn’t sure he wants to.

When he’s done with the cleanup, Cas rolls out of the bed to blow out the candle and turn off the music. Dean stretches, feeling a giddy echo of new soreness in his muscles. 

“Man. I don’t even wanna move,” he says.

“Then don’t,” Cas says, low in the new quiet, the absence of music.

That’s kind of surprising, but Dean’s too sleepy to question it. “‘Kay.” Permission granted, Dean lets his eyes drift closed again. He dozes through Cas putzing around some more, hums a little when he pulls the duvet up to cover Dean’s nakedness. He only notices Cas sliding back into bed because the dip of the mattress triggers some instinct deep in his brain to reach out and wrap his limbs around his bed partner.

Cas laughs, maybe, just a little, petting Dean’s arm and whispering, “Goodnight, Dean.” And maybe there’s a ghost of a kiss pressed to Dean’s hairline. Or maybe it’s a dream.

“Mfhmg,” is Dean’s only reply.

He’s not awake to notice how long Cas lies, unsleeping, in the dark.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry my dear readers, this is only the long dark night before the dawn.
> 
> Brief trigger warning, brief enough that I'm not adding it to the tags, see end notes for details.

Castiel does not sleep well. He lies awake in the dark for far longer than he’d like, and waking up is painful enough that he doesn’t bother trying to return.

On the other side of the mattress, Dean is a warm, slumbering weight, his breathing peaceful with just the barest raw edge of a snore. He’d rolled over at some point and is now half on his belly, blankets twisted around his hips; Castiel burns with the urge to wrap himself around this beautiful man, to nestle up behind him, bury his nose in his hair, tuck their knees together. They would fit like puzzle pieces. He wants to press Dean’s body tight to all the cracks in his armor, stop the pain from pouring through.

It wouldn’t help. More accurately, it might help for the moment, but it would only make it worse in the long run.

Dean barely stirs as Castiel extracts himself from the soft sheets that smell like both of them. It’s chilly outside the nest, away from Dean’s skin, but Castiel cannot stay. He slips into the silk robe— _Anna’s,_ just like everything else—and pads quietly to the bathroom. The nightlight casts a soft glow; he deliberately avoids his own eyes in the mirror.

Sinking down on the edge of the tub, Castiel rakes his fingers through his hair—greasy, like the rest of him—and scrubs at the ache under his scalp. He’s been a fool. What on earth was he thinking? That he could just have Dean like that—eyes glassy with pleasure, lips begging to be kissed, skin flushed and glowing, a vision of desire blooming below him—and expect to give him up gracefully?

Dean is a good man. Castiel is certain that if he expressed interest, Dean would at least make a token effort at—

At what? Dating? A relationship? Castiel squashes that flickering flame with a ruthlessness born of bitter experience.

He’s not delusional. He knows who he is. He’s a burnout with no place to go, a disgrace to his family, and the only reason he hasn’t done society a favor and removed his burdensome presence from the planet is the kids who rely on him. Claire. Kaia. Alfie. Kevin. Alex. Jack. Jesse. He can’t let them down by disappearing.

He’s no one Dean needs to bother himself with, and it will only ever be a matter of time before Dean realizes that. Especially once Anna returns and Castiel is no longer living this false life, conveniently placed right within Dean’s sphere, where he normally has no business being. Castiel can see it unfolding in his mind’s eye: The promises to keep in touch, so well-meaning. The occasional awkward lunch date or overzealous attempt at an adventure (or worse, a _social engagement_ ). The ever-lengthening span between text messages, the apologies for late replies, the last few going without a response of any kind. The slow drift into one another’s past. The inevitability of it tightens his heart and his fists until they shake.

Dean doesn’t need Castiel. Not anymore. He’s going to meet someone worthy of him and they’re going to live happily ever after, and Castiel will just be an entertaining footnote.

This is what he does. This is what he's good for. He helps people along their way, an ever-transient presence. They never stay. They're never there for him. 

His stomach squeezes bile up his throat. He’s never been a romantic person—not since he learned better—but he is selfish and possessive. It’s one reason he gravitates toward people like Meg and Balthazar, people who are clearly not his to possess. But Dean—Dean makes him _yearn_. Maybe it’s because of the need to go slow and approach Dean delicately, the slow circling toward tonight more like courtship than anything he’s experienced in far too long. That’s certain to get his wires crossed. Or maybe it’s Dean’s open vulnerability, how raw he is, how eager he is for care and touch, and there’s nothing Cas wants more than to _give_ — 

He stands abruptly. He can’t be here right now. This isn’t helping. Once the dizzy headrush has passed, he catches sight of his own haunted face in the mirror. His fist is clenched and the muscles of his arm draw back, but he stops. Takes a deliberate breath. And turns away.

Dean is still asleep, sprawled on his back now, with one arm tossed over the pillows, his body creating a space that draws at Castiel like an ebbing tide.

Instead of following that pull of longing, he picks up his jeans and T-shirt from the floor, slowly, silently. The door barely clicks as he shuts it behind him.

~~

Dean wakes to a stream of sunshine through violet curtains. He was dreaming of warm skin, luminous blue eyes, wild dark hair. But when he surfaces, it’s to an empty pillow on the other side of the bed and a pleasant soreness in all parts of his body, but no Cas.

Checking the time, he sees that it’s nearly nine, and part of his brain kicks out on reflex for sleeping until such an absurd hour. I earned it, he thinks to himself, and that makes him smile again.

Doesn’t answer where Cas is, though. He’s not exactly an early riser.

Nothing for it. Dean rolls out of the bed, still smiling at all the new and fascinating ways in which his body aches. It’s like the pain of a good workout, but a hell of a lot more fun.

The thought gets him laughing to himself as he shuffles to the en suite bathroom, still nude and sticky from last night’s sweat and—other things. He nearly trips on the blue silk robe on the floor—that wasn’t there before, was it?

Not that he would have noticed. He was thoroughly distracted.

God, he can’t stop smiling. Even though he was kinda hoping (really hoping) to wake up in Cas’s arms and have a round two, Dean feels positively giddy. Effervescent. Like an over-bubbling bottle of champagne, which, when he thinks about it, is a way-too-appropriate image.

Maybe they can go out for breakfast. The idea trembles nervously in his center, but he’s not scared of it anymore. So what if someone sees? So what if everyone knew? They’d look at Dean, they’d look at Cas, and somehow everyone would know that they were connected, and instead of being terrifying, it’s exhilarating. He wants that. He wants everyone to know. 

Dean doesn’t really want to put his clothes back on just yet, so he scoops up the blue silk robe and slides it over his arms. It feels like cool water and it smells like him, and Dean has to tug the sappy smile off his cheeks.

But as he wanders the house, it becomes increasingly obvious that he’s alone. Cas isn’t curled up on the sofa with coffee, or in the kitchen making breakfast, or out on the porch with a pipe, or any of the other places Dean imagines he might have been. With each successive emptiness, Dean’s heart sinks into his stomach, and a chill leeches the warmth from his limbs.

Eloise is in the kitchen meowing plaintively for her breakfast, which Dean gives her in accordance with the detailed instructions under a butterfly magnet on the fridge. Once they hear the rattling of the dish, Thomas and the elusive Roscoe come out of the woodwork and make beelines for their food bowls, which Dean dutifully fills.

It’s weird that Cas left without feeding them.

Confusion settling on his brow, Dean returns to the bedroom and pulls his phone from his trouser pocket. No texts or anything to indicate that Cas had gone somewhere and was coming back. His finger hovers over the “call” button before selecting the text box instead.

_Dean: [Where’d you go?]_

Like an idiot, he stands in the middle of the bedroom for a few long moments, staring at the screen and waiting for an answer.

When it doesn’t come, he reaches absently for one of the half-full glasses of wine on the dresser. He’s not sure if it’s his or Cas’s, but he drains it anyway. It dries out his tongue; he makes a face and goes back to the bathroom to drink water out of his cupped hands instead.

There’s still no answer when he comes out. Feeling weirdly dejected, he strips off the robe and gathers up his clothes from yesterday, sliding his button-down and slacks onto his sticky skin and consoling himself that his shower is not very far away. 

That’s when he registers that it's only his own clothes on the floor. Cas’s have disappeared.

Logically, he knew that Cas had gone, but the proof is hard to look at straight on.

He wanders down the stairs again, uncertainty unseating him and setting him adrift. Maybe Cas just nipped to the store or something. Maybe he was going to make breakfast but they were out of eggs. Or maybe he’s picking up coffee. 

Dean dawdles, washing their wine glasses and leaving them to dry on the counter, starting and deleting a half a dozen texts to Cas.

It’s looking increasingly unlikely. And the longer he loiters, the more pathetic he feels and the tighter the knot in his stomach winds.

Well. At least his walk of shame is a short one.

He finally settles on a brief, two-word text as he leaves, slipping back over to his own half of the duplex with a feeling like he’s been kicked.

_Dean: [Door’s unlocked.]_

~~

Dean’s not moping. He’s really not. People who are moping don’t shower; Dean does. People who are moping don’t clean their entire kitchens; Dean does. Dean foregoes breakfast in favor of black coffee and scrubbing his bathroom tile until it sparkles, even the grout. When he’s done, he can pretend that’s why he’s sore and that the cleaning fumes are why he’s lightheaded.

It’s barely afternoon.

He drinks some tea with lemon, then chews on some Tums for the heartburn. That counts as food, right?

But he’s not moping.

He’s still not moping by the time he finally caves and orders himself a kale-and-sesame salad from his favorite vegan deli. He knows he needs some kind of dinner, and this one comes with roasted beets.

He’s picking at it, beets gone and kale wilting bitterly under the pale dressing, when he hears Cas’s voice on the stoop.

His empty stomach swoops.

His legs are gathering under him to stand before he hears the other voice—also male, rough like Cas’s but with a lilting cadence—and he freezes in place. Whatever he says makes Cas laugh, starting with a deep rumble and evolving into a high-pitched giggle, and Dean, stock-still on his sofa, feels his blood turn to glacial melt.

He can picture the little nose crinkle that goes with that laugh, the sparkle in those blue eyes. 

Stop. Maybe this guy’s a friend. Cas can have those. They never promised anything.

The other duplex door shuts, and Dean exhales.

The salad is a lost cause. Hell, the whole day is a lost cause. Dean closes the plastic clamshell and tosses it in his barren fridge, then trudges up the stairs to his room. His head aches, his heart and limbs heavy, and he has no idea what to do with these feelings.

Okay, sue him, he’s moping.

He mopes his way into his pajamas, then manages to pout while brushing his teeth, which is no easy feat, and even leaves time for a good bit of sulking once he’s crawled into his covers.

He’s barely started pretending to be asleep when he hears the first groan, and all possibility of drifting off screams out of existence. 

He should have expected this. The way his heart is pounding fit to shatter his ribs tells him he did expect this, he just didn’t want to admit it.

It comes again, a few sultry moans and then an exhalation of fuck, clear as day. If Dean strains—if he wants to really torture himself—he can hear Cas’s low voice murmuring to the mystery man, especially now that Dean knows exactly what that sounds like, feels like, what those words can do to a person.

What they did to him.

Right there in that same bed, not even twenty-four hours prior. He wonders if Cas had even bothered to change the sheets—no, he must not, he’d just gotten home. And that just makes him wonder who else he’d had on them before— 

Dean bolts out of bed. He can’t be here. Tripping on his own covers, half-blind and nauseated, he stumbles down the hall, away from the noises. He shouldn’t be hearing this anyway. This is Cas’s private business, and he should know better than to think he has any claim on the man. He knows Cas has had a lot of sex—hell, he’d heard him before. It was foolish to think last night meant anything to him just because it was special to Dean.

For Cas, it was just another Friday night. And probably a pretty boring one, at that—a lackluster blowjob, a quick, uninteresting fuck, and then the sloppy virgin finishes him off with a hand job?

Dean is an idiot.

And now Cas is fucking somebody else, probably just to take the edge off after Dean’s abysmal disappointment.

Dean ends up in the basement again, face-down on the sofa. He can still smell a ghost of sandalwood and weed, and memories of Cas on this couch swim blurrily through his head. Abandoning himself to shame, he buries his face in the cushions. When the silence pressing down on him grows too heavy, he reaches for the remote to flick the TV on. Salt and Burn is right there at the top of his Netflix queue; he dismisses it out of hand in favor of a mindless old sitcom from a simpler time. Dragging down the thin fleece throw from the back of the couch, he wraps himself up and lets himself drift, face and stomach pressed into the rough pile of the upholstery, one eye on the garish light of the TV. He doesn’t remember falling asleep.

~~

The next morning is early and aching. Even though it’s Sunday, Dean sets himself solidly on the rails of his usual routine, right up to the tie and the wing-tip shoes, and leaves for the office while the rest of the world is still slowly shuffling its way toward coffee.

There are no signs of life in the duplex next door. Dean averts his gaze anyway. He doesn’t want to know.

Work is a passable distraction. The last several weekends he hasn’t made it into the office—and the fact that he’d spent the previous week paying more attention to his dick than to his work, god, he’s a pathetic loser—have sort of caught up with him, so there’s plenty for him to divert his attention into. Things he can do by rote. Busywork that requires just enough of his brain that, for a few hours, the solid ache in his stomach softens and the dry sawdust taste in his mouth starts to wash away. It’s grinding, pointless work, but he’s good at it, and right now he could use something he has a handle on.

Even if he does spend a good chunk of the day staring into space, ears full of white static.

Eventually, he runs out of things to do that don’t have to wait for Monday. He blinks at his window and is sort of surprised to see the sun already trailing west. Feeling a drumbeat pounding in his stomach, he packs up his things and follows his own footsteps home. The drum gets louder the closer he gets to home until it’s beating on his eardrums, his fingertips, rattling his bones.

He sees Cas on the porch from a block away, the dark blot of his hair, the slope of his shoulders, and the sight of him rings like a cymbal crash. Dean almost drives right past his own house, but that’s too cowardly, even for him.

He’s lounging in the iron chair, shirtless, in his low-slung magenta pants, a joint smoldering between his fingers, and some mewling, self-destructive part of Dean wants to look at all that exposed skin. Skin he’d touched. But he doesn’t. He watches the joint burn, watches his stubbled chin as he stares up at the sky turning purple overhead.

At first, Dean thinks Cas isn’t even going to look at him. But then he breaks out of whatever trance he’s put himself in and looks down straight into Dean’s eyes. That look pins him in place like a bug under glass. “Hello, Dean,” he says.

And somehow, it sounds false. There’s a blankness to his expression, like he’s somewhere else, and that finally gives Dean’s jangling feelings a direction, funneling them straight down into anger. “That’s it?” he asks. “Just that, ‘Hello, Dean’?”

The blankness doesn’t shift, but it hardens like thickening ice. He hasn’t seemed like an alien to Dean in weeks, but he does now. “Is there some other greeting you’d prefer?”

Dean’s gut roils. “Didn’t see you yesterday,” Dean forces out, hard, a bitter pill spat out rather than swallowed.

Cas blinks, slow and owlish, then shrugs one languid shoulder, and alright, fine, Dean looks. There’s a bite mark above his left nipple that Dean is very certain he didn’t leave there.

“You going to say anything?” Dean asks.

Cas finally drops his gaze. He indulges in a long, slow drag on his joint, holds it in, lets out the plume of smoke to join the air. “What’s there to say?” he asks, voice low and thick through the smoke. “I had a good time with you, Dean.”

Dean scoffs, and his feet carry him up the steps and onto the porch without his direction. “What, so good you had to go find another hook up the next night? Get the taste out of your mouth, right?” He didn’t mean to get this close to Cas, but that’s where he finds himself. Close enough to smell the whiskey on his breath and see the bloodshot, red-rimmed eyes, close enough to see the way his pupils are blown unnaturally wide.

That’s new.

For just a second, Cas’s focus is sharp and cuts him like a blade. “My engagements with Crowley have nothing to do with you,” he says.

It stings like a lie, though Dean can’t pinpoint exactly what’s false about it. “Bullshit,” he says anyway.

Cas stands up, pushing back into Dean’s space, a squint on his brow. “I don’t recall making any promises, Dean. My business is my business. I suggest you leave it that way.”

“Then what the—” Dean bites his tongue. No. He’s not going to be that pathetic. “Fine. Have a nice life, Castiel.” And with that, he turns his back and marches toward his front door. God forsaken keys, why did he have to lock his door, and why are his hands shaking like this— 

“Dean.”

Dean stiffens. He’d just managed to slide the key into the lock. Against his better judgement, he turns.

Turns to see a glimpse of a broken man. Just a momentary flash of heart before the walls slam back up. Cas turns to flick the butt of his joint onto the concrete steps. “I need you to watch the cats for a few days,” he says to the bit of burnt paper and ash.

“I thought that was the whole reason you’re here,” Dean says.

Cas says nothing, and then, “I have to—I have some things I need to do.” Vague, ominous. Worry tries to crowd in around the edges, but Dean’s shame and rejection snap it back. Not his business.

“Yeah, whatever. Just leave a key under the mat or something.” With that, he escapes into the blessed cool of his own house.

It’s dark in here, and it doesn’t seem worth the effort to turn on a light. Dean feels dizzy, and it occurs to him that all he’s eaten today is a mini quiche from the little cafe attached to his office building.

Forcing himself through the motions, he chokes down the sad, wilted remains of last night’s kale salad, and as much as he dreads going back up to his bedroom, there is no way he’s facing Monday morning from his basement sofa.

He doesn’t hear a peep from the other side of the wall all night. He knows, because he spends most of the night at least halfway awake and listening. He tries to tell himself that the silence is a good thing.

~~

Dean wakes up to a heart attack when the first thing he sees is Cas’s name on his phone. The text, when he fumbles it open, is depressingly short.

_Cas: [Key is under the hide-a-rock.]_

Flopping back on the pillow, Dean tries to calm his racing heart. Contemplates replying, but that seems unnecessary at best, so he just rolls out of bed.

The timestamp is 2:33 am, which gives him something to think about while he brushes his teeth. What was Cas doing up and probably leaving the house at 2:33 am?

Doesn’t matter. It’s none of Dean’s concern. Cas had made that very clear.

And so begins the most drudging, painful, and painfully boring week of Dean’s life. Is this what a breakup feels like? He thinks it might be, even though that’s stupid. He and Cas hadn’t been together. 

That thought sits sourly on his tongue, and he spends an extra half an hour punishing himself on the treadmill trying to forget it.

Every morning and every evening, he lets himself into Anna’s duplex to give the cats their various meals. The house doesn’t change, just starts to collect the distinct must of an empty room. On the second day, Dean wonders why they didn’t just do it this way to begin with, why Cas had to housesit at all. It would have been so much easier.

Especially since now he’s slacking on the job. Dean hasn’t seen hide nor hair of him since their confrontation on Sunday.

As Wednesday oozes into Thursday evening, Dean’s anger grows stale, leaving an aftertaste of worry. He tries to spit it out, but it’s stubborn.

What if Cas is in trouble? What if he’s into some shady shit? Guy’s kind of an enigma. Dean knows he’s technically homeless, and though he’d never given off any particularly downtrodden vibes, it occurs to Dean that he’s only ever actually seen Cas here, in Anna’s space. He has no idea what Cas is really like, what his real life is like. He’s not sure if that should bother him more or less than it does.

He tries to put it out of his mind, but once the question is there, it sticks.

In the cold light of Friday morning, staring blankly at his office computer, he wonders if it isn’t better this way. Maybe Cas is just gone, flaked out on Dean and on his sister. Dean will keep feeding the cats until she’s back in—god, a week now—and he’ll tell her how much of a flake her brother is, and that will be the end of it. All he’ll have of him will be one very fond night of memories. With time, he might even be able to remember it without the bitterness of rejection and regret.

Really not how he’d hope to spend this last couple of weeks. Really, really not.

Maybe this is the push he needed to get over himself and get out of the closet. Maybe he can tell somebody. Maybe he can start dating.

Except that when he pictures the guy on the other side of the dinner table, or sharing popcorn in a movie theater, or snuggled up on the sofa sharing a blanket, all he sees is wild dark hair, indigo eyes, the aromas of incense and weed, and—

A knock on his office door stops his train of thought, and he’s grateful for it. “Hey,” comes a voice, only vaguely familiar, and he looks up into a young, earnest face flanked by too-long dark-brown hair. “I mean, uh, good morning, Mr. Smith.”

Dean forces a smile at the guy, leaning back and waving a dismissive hand. He’s clearly new-hire nervous. “Please. Mr. Smith was my father. You can call me Dean. And you are—?”

The guy smiles and takes two long steps into the room. “Wesson, sir. Sam Wesson. I just started this week, under Adler.”

Dean winces. “I’m so sorry.”

Sam’s face does a funny twinge like he wants to agree but doesn’t want to be too open about it. Then he stops, his attention caught on something unexpected. Dean follows his eyeline to—oh. 

A little clock with a rainbow enamel inlay around the face ticking quietly on the corner of his desk.

In all the hullabaloo of the weekend, he’d actually forgotten he put that there. He’d been two steps past tipsy when he’d bought it online, and the package had sat under his desk like a time bomb for a week and a half. It was only last Friday that he’d gotten up the courage to pull it out of the packing peanuts and arrange it carefully on his desk, in a spot where it wasn’t obvious, but wasn’t hidden either. Anyone could see it if they knew where to look.

Part of him wants to reach out and snatch the stupid thing out of sight. It’s subtle and classy, brushed silver everywhere but rainbow, but the colors on that wheel are very specific. By the pause and obvious recalculation happening behind Sam’s eyes, the message is coming through loud and clear.

But before Dean can do anything to call further attention to the damn thing, Sam’s smiling at him again, and it’s with a different kind of warmth. “He sent me down here with the Roman reports,” Sam says, handing over the thick manila folder in his hands. Dean takes the folder, his fingertips tacky. “And, uh. Nice clock.”

He knows. 

“Thank you, Wesson,” Dean says, pressing the folder into his desk more firmly than necessary. “And if you ever need a sympathetic ear about your boss, you know where to find me.”

Sam just laughs. “You got it,” he says, but doesn’t offer up any further commiseration. “Well. Have a good day,” he says, and starts to back out of the office.

He knows, and it’s okay.

“Sam,” Dean says. Sam stops in his tracks. “Can I ask you a question?”

He drifts back into the office. “Sure.”

“Why on earth did you decide to work here?”

Of all the questions Dean could have asked, this does not seem to have made it onto Sam’s mental list. Dean watches him trying to find the trick, the very picture of a fresh-faced college graduate attempting to leap into office politics without a springboard. “Uh. Well, if I can be honest, it paid better than anything else I found.”

Dean snorts. “Yeah, that’s about all it’s got going for it,” he says. Sam is still visibly scrolling through his rolodex of acceptable responses and coming up blank. “Word of advice,” Dean says. “Don’t let them work you through the ground, okay? Adler’s got some ass-backward ideas about what makes a good work ethic, and they’re gonna bleed you dry if you don’t set some boundaries.”

“Right.” Sam shifts from foot to foot. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“You got a lot of life and a lot of years ahead of you. This place? Doesn’t deserve ‘em. Take what you need out of ‘em and get outta here.”

Sam’s brow crinkles up. “With all due respect, I could say the same to you,” he says.

Dean considers that, and has the feeling he’ll keep considering it for a while.

“I’m gonna—” Sam gestures out the door with one thumb, and Dean snaps out of it.

“Yeah, sure. Take care, Sam.”

“You too, Dean,” he says with a wave.

~~

At lunchtime—which he does eat, a perfectly sensible cup of tomato soup and crackers, thank you, he really does know how to feed himself—Dean fiddles with his phone at his desk, twitching with indecision.

_Dean: [You gonna be back for the weekend?]_

Two minutes after sending, he feels like an idiot.

_Dean: [I just need to know if I’m still feeding the cats.]_

There. That fixes it. Now he can eat his soup in peace.

Most of it, anyway.

By the end of the day, he still has no response.

Maybe Cas’s phone is dead.

Or maybe he’s rolled over in a ditch somewhere.

“Stop it,” he orders himself. This isn’t helping.

Without Cas to look forward to, the weekend looms, long and lonely. He finds himself planning to come into the office on Saturday and maybe Sunday too, try and get ahead—

But, for the first time in his adult life, it occurs to him to wonder, ahead of what?

He’s been lonely for so long, he doesn’t know how to be anything else anymore. Not without Cas to show him the way.

Okay. Baby steps. He resolves not to work on Saturday. Surely he can entertain himself, right? It’s one day. Or two. Maybe he’ll come in on Sunday if he’s not completely out of his mind by the end of Saturday.

Cas still hasn’t answered his text.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blink-and-you'll-miss-it trigger warning for Cas having had suicidal ideation. Not mentioned by name, he's just real down on himself.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit late, bit short, and comes with a note that the next chapter is probably going to be delayed. It will be better for it, I promise. Hopefully no more than a week, but trust, it will come. Thank you all for reading, and happy Halloween!

Dean wakes up on a warm, sunny Saturday morning with absolutely no idea what to do with himself. Once he manages to haul his ass out of bed, autopilot takes over, getting him through coffee and a shower, but when he reaches for his closet, the slacks and dress shirts stare right back at him. It’s the weekend, right? When was the last time he wore something that wasn’t either a suit or exercise clothes?

So he digs, trying not to think too hard about the symbolism of digging  _ deeper _ into the closet, and comes up with a pair of jeans he used to wear for housework or the occasional social outing with Charlie, not long after college when he’d still done that kind of thing from time to time. They’re wrinkled and they smell a little dusty, but they are worn soft and feel like old friends when he slides them up over his legs. There’s a little extra room around the hips; he’d been eating a lot more bacon cheeseburgers back then. Still, they’re comfy, and that’s what belts are for.

A little more rooting around in the drawers, and he comes up with a soft green T-shirt—probably came in a pack of undershirts—which fits him way better than the jeans do. It’s a good look, even he has to admit it as he inspects his reflection. The shirt shows off his shoulders. If he flexes his biceps at himself, well, that’s his own business.

After a quick bite of breakfast and popping over to Anna’s to feed the cats—Thomas is getting needy, so by the time he leaves, he has to take a lint-roller to his jeans—Dean can’t shake a feeling of restlessness. He doesn’t feel like changing into workout clothes now that he’s reacquainted with his jeans, so he does something that he’s not sure he’s done in the entire time he’s lived in this duplex.

He goes for a walk.

It’s not even a particularly brisk walk, more of a leisurely amble around his neighborhood. He deliberately turns away from his usual running route, finding himself wandering around cul-de-sacs and under the shade of trees he’s never seen before, even though they’re mere blocks from his house. He waves at a grandmother who’s out watering her roses, and she beams back at him with a toothless grin and a flap of her free hand. He has no idea who she is. Maybe if he keeps walking this way, someday he’ll bring her a casserole or something.

He stumbles upon a park with a few city blocks’ worth of grass and tall trees. He’d seen it on the map of his neighborhood, a green rectangle in the grid and tangle of residential streets, but never found time to check it out. It turns out to be a pretty good size for an urban park, big enough that you can’t actually see roads once you get toward the middle. He wanders along the paths that turn from concrete to gravel and back again, up and over low hills and under tall, fragrant trees. Inhaling a deep breath, the air smells verdant and rich, like growing things and the flush of summer. 

In the center of the park, there’s a duck pond, mirror-smooth and dark, reflecting the various verdigris of the trees and the cornflower blue of the sky. The path curves around, and Dean follows it until he finds a painted bench in the shade of some rhododendrons and plants himself there. The flowers have long since bloomed and gone to the heat of summer, but there’s still an overly sweet floral aroma hanging in the air under the bushes. 

Dean breathes.

Watches the ripples on the water’s surface.

Lays one arm along the back of the bench, settling in.

Resists the urge to check his phone. Rests his hand on the shape of it in his pocket, presses it into his thigh, thumbnail tracing the hard edge, but doesn’t pull it out. 

He doesn’t need to know.

He’s breathing. He’s listening to the sounds of ducks conversing, splashing around for food. Over the next hill, he can hear the occasional yelp of children; must be a playground over there. A man in tight shorts jogs past, and Dean lets himself look—respectfully.

He doesn’t check his phone.

After a while, the restlessness sets in again, so he gets up off the bench and ambles back toward home. It’s starting to get hot out, anyway.

Back in his kitchen, he has some water and a snack and contemplates the hours stretching in front of him. He’s still got a lot of the day left. He scrolls through Netflix for several minutes without finding anything interesting, but he doesn’t feel like sitting, anyway. If he sits, it’s only a matter of time before he gives in and checks his phone. And he’ll have one ear trained on the porch the whole time.

Maybe he should have gone into work.

No, nope. Not going down that road.

Fighting frustration, Dean flicks his TV off and follows a stray whim out to the garage.

The Impala greets him in all her gleaming glory, even under the dull fluorescents of the garage. Dean has to breathe hard into his heartbeat when he looks in her front seat, but if he goes around front and pops open her hood— 

There. Much better.

She’d sounded fine the other day, but there’s nothing wrong with checking some fluids, changing her oil. He probably should have done that before taking her out, anyway. Better late than never. Opening up the garage door to let in the fine midsummer breeze, he fires up an old radio on the tool bench—every garage has one, he thinks they probably come standard—and gets to work.

He’s barely got his hands dirty when he feels his phone buzz in his pocket, and something in his stomach slices sideways. Then it buzzes again in the distinct rhythm of a phone call rather than a text message, and he swears under his breath, wipes his hands haphazardly on a rag, and digs his phone out of his pocket, heart pounding. He answers without even pausing to register the name on the caller ID.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Dean!” Charlie chirps.

Dean deflates.

Charlie’s already barrelling on. “So. Me and Dorothy were wondering if you and Cas wanted to do a game night tonight? We just got the new Boss Monster expansion and it looks like a blast, but it’s no good for two players. Whaddya say?”

Him and Cas. It rolls off her tongue so easily and lands like acid in his ears. “Uh. I dunno,” he says. Before Charlie can draw any conclusions of any kind, he forces himself to say, “I don’t think Cas will be around, but I’m down.” It’s as good a thing as any to round out a Saturday.

“Seriously?” Charlie asks. “You guys have been, like, joined at the hip lately. What gives?”

Dean swallows ashes. “Guess he just needed some space.” He can’t say more.

Charlie hums in his ear, and Dean has the sudden feeling of a fox with a hound on its tail. “Tell you what,” she says, sniffing out the scent. “How’s about I come over, say, nowish. Have you had lunch?”

“Uh, not really.”

“Great! I’ll bring gyros and board games—not the Boss Monster expansion, we’ll do that some other time—and then you can tell me whatever you want to tell me. Sound good?” She says it way too casual, forced lightness pulling up the end of her sentence.

“There’s nothing to tell you.”

“Super! Then we’ll just have a good buddy-buddy afternoon.”

“Charlie.”

“See you soon, Deano!”

“Charli—” But she’s gone. 

Dean huffs, shoves his phone in his pocket, and gets his hands back in the engine. Maybe if he keeps himself distracted, he can convince Charlie that nothing is wrong.

~~

Dean’s just scrubbing the grease off his hands—damn, that shit’s really on there, and the dish soap is only doing so much for him—when he hears Charlie’s knock followed by the click of the door opening. “Knock knock!” she calls.

“You know, that kind of defeats the purpose of knocking,” Dean says.

“Oh, quit acting like I caught you in a—whoa.” Charlie takes one good look up and down at Dean’s grease-spotted T-shirt and jeans. “Me likey. What’s the occasion?”

Dean’s ears go hot. “Felt like working on the car, that’s all,” he says.

Charlie gives him a side-eye, but doesn’t say anything else. She does haul two bags up onto the kitchen island: one canvas and boxy, the other plastic and smelling like grilled meats. “Okay! Well, I brought Forbidden Desert—totally rad steampunk vibe—Ascension, or Carcassonne.”

“Forbidden Desert,” Dean picks at random, and in a few minutes, Charlie has the tiles set up and he’s trying valiantly not to let tzatziki sauce run down his fingers.

“Jeeze, were you raised in a barn?” she says, handing him most of the stack of napkins that came with their lunch. “Maybe we should put off this game until you’re done leaking gyro juice everywhere.”

Dean sets aside his gyro and wipes his hands. “I’m good,” he says, swallowing his bite. “Let’s play.”

“Or we could, you know.” Charlie puts on her most charming smile, the one guaranteed to strike fear into the hearts of avoidant best friends everywhere. “Talk.”

Dean picks up his little yellow game piece and the card that explains how the game is played. “So this one’s like the island game, right? Except it’s sand instead of water—”

“Dean.”

Dean’s lips button tight against the words bubbling up his throat. He doesn't look at Charlie. 

She reaches across the table. Dean’s hands are occupied, but her fingertips touch his elbow, and it’s enough.

“I slept with him.”

Monumental as this pronouncement is, Charlie doesn’t react hardly at all. Dean finally tears his gaze away from the stupid little card and meets her gaze.

“That’s it?”

Dean sits up straighter. He can feel a scowl etching its way into his face. “Come on, you know this was a big deal for me.”

“No—I mean, yeah, definitely, I get that, and congratulations, seriously! But—” She chews on her lip, concern still tilting her big gray eyes. “I mean, I’ve been waiting for that to happen for, like, weeks.”

Dean has no response beyond wordless sputtering.

“What? I have eyes.”

“You figured after all I’ve been through, I was just gonna hop in bed with the first halfway-available guy I spent more than two minutes with?”

Charlie shrugs, but then waves her hands. “No, hang on, this is beside the point.”

“I think it is the point, Charlene.”

“No, I mean—if you’d slept with him and everything was hunky dory, you wouldn’t be all”—she gestures at him—“mopey.”

“I’m not moping.”

“You’re home on a Saturday by yourself.”

“If I was moping, I would have gone to work.”

“Okay, but—”

“Charlie.” Dean sighs and digs his fingers into his eyes, rubbing them until he sees spots. “I’m trying to distract myself. Can we please not talk about it?”

They sit in fidgety silence for a minute, until Charlie says, “Okay. Sorry.”

“Thanks.” The word itself is dry on Dean’s tongue.

Maybe he should tell her. Might feel better.

Instead, they play. It starts a bit stilted, but then they’re sharing solar shields and blowing away sand dunes like it was any other day. Maybe that’s why, at a lull in the conversation while Charlie figures out how best to use her actions, the truth comes blurting out his mouth.

“He slept with someone else,” he says, and Charlie’s wide gaze snaps up to his. Dean speaks through the stiffness of his throat, but it all comes tumbling out. “I woke up the morning after we—after—y’know, and I wanted him to be there, but he wasn’t. He just up and vanished. So, yeah, okay, I moped around a lot that day, and then that night I heard him—I heard him with some other guy. And I know that’s just Cas and and we didn’t actually promise anything, but then he was acting all weird and aloof and I got so pissed off at him, but now I haven’t seen him all week and I’m kinda starting to get worried that he’s gone or that he’s in trouble or, I dunno, that I never knew him at all, and he’s just—”

“Whoa,” Charlie holds up both hands. “Breathe. Dean? Breathe.”

Dean breathes, sucking down air like he’d forgotten what it was. 

“There is a lot to unpack there,” Charlie says, which is the understatement of the century. She sets her cards face down and folds her fingers together like she’s a high school guidance counselor. “So, you slept together.”

“I thought that was the least surprising part,” Dean says, sulky.

"Well, yeah, but. How did it, um. How did it go?” 

“You want a play by play?” 

“Ew, no.” Charlie’s face wrinkles up. “Way too many testicles involved, sorry.” 

Dean has to laugh at that, even if his shoulders are still hunched up around his ears. He tries to remember some of that yoga crap Cas had shown him and relax them down, but that turns out to be counterproductive. 

“Would you do it again?” Charlie asks. “Minus the disappearing act, which, we’ll get to that, I promise.”

Dean stares down at their abandoned game. “Honestly? That night, that morning, I was ready to, I dunno. Pick out curtains or whatever.” Idly, he picks up and fiddles with one of the game pieces. It looks like a tiny ship’s wheel. With the axle pinched between thumb and forefinger, he spins it round and around, this way and that. “I—” his throat closes up like a healing wound, but he has to force this out. “I’ve never felt like this before. And I don’t—I don’t think it’s just the sex, or maybe it is and I’ve just got my wires crossed, but. I think. I think I might kinda—love him, a little.” Immediately, he feels like a naive fool, a punch-drunk idiot drugged up on attention and attraction. He drops his face into his hands, almost putting an eye out with the wheel. “If you ever tell anyone I said that, I’m moving to New Zealand. Especially Cas.” 

“Oh dip, Middle Earth, I wanna come.” 

“No.”

“What if I say please?”

“Charlene.”

“And it kinda sounds like you should tell him that yourself.”

Dean drops his hands to the table with a thud. The wheel goes skittering off to the side. “There are so many reasons why that’s not gonna happen. Not least of which is that I haven’t seen him since Sunday. And who fucking does that, anyway?” The anger might have cooled, but it’s still there, and Dean is uncomfortably aware that it only hurts so bad because he cares. Stupid feelings.

Charlie’s face is pinching up with worry. “Yeah, that is—So he just vanished? Like, he went somewhere?”

“Yeah, just up and left in the middle of the night. Or early morning, I guess. I kinda slept in.”

"And that was the last you saw of him?" 

Dean sighs. “Well, no.” And he tells her about their confrontation on the porch, how Cas had seemed so distant and just  _ off _ , like a washed-out Pepper’s ghost of the guy Dean had thought he was getting to know pretty damn well. “And like,” he concludes, “maybe I don’t know him like I thought I did. Maybe all that—everything before—maybe that was just to get in my pants? But that seems like a lot of effort, you know? If he’s got a booty call on every street corner—” Dean stops, sighs, shoves his hands through his hair. “The hell was he even doing with me?” 

Charlie’s cool, delicate fingers curl around his wrist, tugging his hand away from its death grip on his scalp. Reluctantly, he lifts his eyes to hers. “For what it’s worth? I don’t think he’s ever felt like this either. Or at least, not since I’ve known him.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I mean I think he’s scared. You should see the way he looks at you, Dean.”

A glowing ember leaps into flame in Dean’s chest, but he smothers it ruthlessly. “You think he—what, has feelings for me?” He tries to scoff, but it comes out too quiet to be anything but painfully vulnerable.

“I’d put money on it. But it’s not like you got the market cornered on baggage, you know.”

“Then why…” Dean trails off, looking around the room at the distinct lack of Cas in their midst. “I mean, where did he even go?” Belatedly, he wonders if Cas’s van isn’t still parked nearby. Wonders if he’s been mere blocks away all week and Dean’s been too busy feeling sorry for himself to actually look for him. That thought sits sour in his gut, and his legs are tensing under him before he knows it, ready to run him right out the door.

Charlie hedges, tapping her thumbs together and chewing on her lip. “Well, uh. I mean, you know Cas.”

“No, I don’t, really. That’s kind of part of the problem,” Dean says.

Charlie keeps tapping, her mouth screwing itself into a sideways knot. The toe of her shoe raps on the floor in a nervous rhythm, and Dean stares her down.

She raises her eyebrows like she’s trying to erect a halo of innocence.

“You know something,” Dean says.

“Okay, okay, I might. Maybe.” She sighs, nervous tension draining out of her body. “He swore me to secrecy.”

Frustration builds in Dean’s shoulders until he figures steam is about to whistle out his ears. “What if I said please?”

Charlie closes her eyes. “Okay. You said he came back with someone. Do you know who?”

A name pings in Dean’s brain, shaken loose from a stack of memories he’d rather leave alone. “Uh. I think he said something like… Crowley?”

She definitely recognizes that name, if the tight turn of her expression is anything to go by. “I thought so. Come on.” She stands, chair legs scraping on the tile, and Dean follows as if springloaded. “You’re driving.”

“Lead the way.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHOO. Well. Uh. "Hopefully just a week," says I. Well, that "week" contained the US election, 15x18, the celebration of 15x18, 15x19, 15x20, the fallout from 15x20, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, an insurrection at the US Capitol, and the swearing in of a new president. Not to mention the announcement of a vaccine for that plague that's been going around. And a whole lotta sea shanties.
> 
> So, yeah, this had to simmer on the backburner for a bit (I wrote [some lighthearted canon smut](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28282626) instead). Trust me, though, it's much better for the wait.
> 
> Extra-special thanks to [PallasPerilous](http://pallasperilous.tumblr.com) for some sorely needed critical advice on this chapter. And as always, [Elanor-n-Evermind](http://elanor-n-evermind.tumblr.com</a) for being my comma-wrangler in chief, among other things. **And please heed the drug use tag in this chapter. It ain't just weed. See end notes for more on that.**
> 
> **Now let's see here, where were we? Ohh yes... In the pit of despair....**

“This the place?”

“Uh-huh.”

‘The place’ turns out to be a low, shabby bungalow on a street with gravel for sidewalks and more fences than mailboxes. The house is set far back from the road, the yard choked with blackberry runners and debris. A sick-looking oak looms over the house at a dangerous angle. Dean is reminded faintly of Claire’s place, but at least there had been some friendliness to the neighborhood. This is just kinda sad.

Dean stares at the house across the long lawn, then opens the door. “Nothing for it, I guess.” But Charlie’s small hand on his arm stops him.

“Dean, hang on a second.” He lets the car door close most of the way, but not enough that the dome light turns off. “Maybe I should go in and, and you drive the get-away car.”

Dean scoffs. “Not happening.”

Charlie sighs an unhappy sigh and thumps her head on the seat. “Look, the last time I had to do this, Cas was pissed, and he swore me to secrecy, which, you’ll notice, I am now breaking, thank you very much.” 

“You mean he’s done this before?” Whatever ‘this’ even is. Dean’s worst fears have been spiraling out before his eyes since they left the house, and the fact that he hasn’t been able to get a straight answer out of Charlie is not helping.

“Once or twice,” she admits, in a tone that suggests to Dean’s paranoid brain that it’s more than twice. “Not in a long time, though, and I thought the last time might have been the end of it, but—”

“But then I happened. Great.” He swipes a hand over his face, and it leaves behind a gross smear of sweat. He’s gotta get out of this car.

“No—Dean, wait—” But Dean’s already swung open the door, hauling himself out and slamming it closed on Charlie’s protests. She scrambles after him. 

“I’m not letting you go in there alone, Red.” Long strides carry Dean across the yard; Charlie has to hustle to keep up, nearly tripping on a thorny vine.

“Listen, setting aside your chauvinistic assumption that I need some big, strong man to protect me—”

“That’s not what this is about.”

“—There is a very real probability that you won’t like what you find—”

“Don’t care.” He's almost made it to the porch. 

“—And, one way or another, he’s not going to be happy that I brought you here, of all people—”

Dean whirls on her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means—”

The front door flies open. “Do you two mind not having your lover’s quarrel on my front stoop? Thank you.”

The stocky man in boxers and a red silk kimono slams the door. Dean and Charlie both stand in place, sharing a look of bewilderment.

“Was that—?”

“Crowley, yeah,” Charlie confirms.

A hot stone of pissiness lodges itself in Dean’s throat. “Screw this,” Dean mutters, then marches up to the door and knocks, hard, Charlie at his heels. When there’s no response, he switches to a fist and bangs louder and more insistently until it flies open.

“No soliciting,” Crowley snaps.

“We’re looking for a friend,” Dean says, deliberately lowering his voice into what he hopes is an intimidating register. He’s got a head of height on this Crowley character, and plenty of muscle. He could take him if he had to, and right now, he’s just waiting for an excuse. 

“Sorry,” he says. “Wrong house. You’ll want to try the Victorian on the corner. Ask for Margo.”

With absolutely zero patience left, Dean snaps, “We’re looking for Castiel. Is he here?”

“Who’s asking?”

Charlie straightens up beside him. “We’re his friends,” she says, and her voice doesn’t waver at all. “We’re here to pick him up.”

“Listen. Ducky.” Dean feels Charlie bristle. “People who come here don’t tend to want their friends storming in on their fun.” He turns to Dean. “They don’t need a white knight coming to the rescue. They come here for a reason, and all too often, it’s to forget all about people like you.”

That stings. “I just need to talk to him,” Dean says. “Please.”

“Oh, boo hoo, my heart, it breaks.” Sarcasm drips from every smarmy syllable, and Dean feels a punch coiling in his shoulder and fist. “Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

He tries to close the door, but Dean is quicker. He jams his foot between the door and the frame, then shoves inside with his whole body weight. Crowley squawks and stumbles on the other side, but Dean pays him no mind. He’s a man on a mission. 

Inside the house is a mess of odors and dim, dark shapes that Dean has trouble recognizing as furniture. Smoke and dust and the stink of unwashed bodies merge into a haze in the living room; some noise that might be music meanders through it. The man at the door sputters while Charlie squeaks some apologies and explanations. Dean marches through the room, nearly tripping over the hoses of a hookah and the legs of at least two people who are not Cas. They barely look up from their resting places. 

Well. The house isn’t that big. Cas has to be here somewhere.

“Try the orgy room,” Crowley calls. “Through the beaded curtain.” He drops into a tattered armchair as if it were a throne. He doesn’t look happy; more like it’s not worth the effort to throw them out just yet.

Trying not to think too hard about it—or at all—Dean steps through the clacking strings of wooden beads and into what can only be the orgy room. It’s wall-to-wall mattresses and futons, covered in sheets and throw blankets in a dizzying array of colors from blood red to turquoise. There are a few scattered bodies—a couple in their underwear wrapped around each other in the corner, quietly talking—but no one is actually doing anything untoward at the moment.

And there, passed out against a bean bag chair under a window, lies Castiel. The dim shafts of sunlight through the closed blinds stripe across his face like bright scars.

Dean freezes in the doorway. He’s not sure how he expected to feel, seeing him again, but what he does feel is a boiling mass of lead in his stomach, and his legs don’t want to move. 

“Dean?” Charlie’s touch on his arm makes him jump. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I just.” Everything tightens, his jaw, his fists, his chest, his throat. Charlie pats his arm.

“I’ll go wake him up,” she says. Then moves past him into the room, picking her way with care across the bedding.

Charlie has just crouched down and placed a hand on Cas’s shoulder when a new presence drifts through the beaded curtain to stand beside him. “You’re the neighbor, aren’t you?”

He tears his eyes away from Cas’s prone form to find a curvaceous woman with soft waves of not-quite-black hair, dark-eyed gaze roving over him. Her tank top dips low over an ample bosom that is clearly not tamed by a bra, and a pair of men’s boxers strain around her hips.

His jaw is too tight to form a response, so he doesn’t bother. She keeps looking him up and down, though, like he’s a prize ham at the county fair. “I thought he said you were a suit.”

Dean shifts, uncomfortable under her naked scrutiny and way more interested in Cas slowly stirring under Charlie’s pestering than whatever this chick has to say.

“I’m Meg, by the way.”

The name rings the faintest of bells, but the memory avoids his recall, and he doesn’t try that hard.

“Wow, nothing? Guess that shows how high I rank on Cassie’s conversational list. Although, I guess it’s fitting. He won’t shut up about you, but it wouldn’t exactly have suited his purposes to go on about me.”

That gets Dean’s attention. “He what?”

Meg grins at him, a Cheshire cat grin like he’s done something delightful. “He speaks.” She pulls a joint out from behind her ear and points it at him. “You know, the only reason he dialed my number that first weekend was to see if he could get a rise out of you. It was a fun scheme, and no skin off my nose. Anyway. Looks like it worked.”

Dean’s brain can’t decide if it’s whirling or grinding to a halt. It’s not getting anywhere, either way. “He—what?”

“I can see why he likes you,” she says, tucking the roll-up into the corner of her mouth and searching in her non-existent pockets. “You’re more of a himbo than he usually goes for, but who knows, maybe that’s what he really needs in life. You got a light?”

“No,” he says. She spies one on a pillow a few feet from the door and bends to retrieve it. “Wait, so, you and Cas—”

Meg laughs as she lights up. “Oh yeah,” she says, puffing until the end glows red. When she speaks again, it’s through a cloud of smoke. “But don’t worry that fuzzy little head of yours. He’s been weirdly saintly since he showed up here, in spite of the best efforts of myself and most of the rabble in attendance. He’ll make out, but then he just gets all gooey and sad. It’s kind of gross, actually.”

Dean’s stomach jumps into his mouth, hot and acidic. But before he can press her for more info, he’s distracted by movement across the room. Cas has finally been more or less roused, and Charlie is pulling him to his feet with some effort. He sways, swoons, Dean’s feet carry him swiftly across the sea of cushions. He has one of Cas’s arms slung over his shoulder without thinking twice.

Up close, he both looks and smells terrible, sour breath and armpit stink. His face is sallow under several days’ worth of stubble, dark hollows under his eyes.

“‘M fine,” he grumbles, prying open his crusty eyes. “You can leave me.”

“Tough cookies,” Dean mutters.

Cas’s eyes blink open wider, focusing with gummy inefficiency on Dean. When he confirms for himself that Dean is actually there, he tries to flinch away, but Dean keeps an iron grip around his waist. Just like the three-legged race, he starts moving toward the door and Cas follows right along, shuffling his feet over the mattresses. It’s a miracle they don’t trip.

They make it through the beaded curtain and out into the living room before Cas tears himself out from under Dean’s arm, no matter how tightly he holds. “You shouldn’t be here,” he says.

It hurts, but Dean digs up every stubborn bone in his body. “Too bad.”

“Dean. You should go.”

“I’m trying, but I’m not leaving without you. Come on.”

Cas scrubs at his eyes, his scruffy chin, his rat’s-nest hair. “How did you even—” he stops, then rounds on Charlie, who shrugs with a guilty look on her face. “Traitor,” he grumbles.

“We were worried—Dean was worried about you,” Charlie says.

“I can handle myself,” Cas says, staring into the middle distance and swaying on his feet.

“Yeah, but you don’t have to. Come on—” Dean grabs for Cas’s hand, but he pulls it out of reach.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“You can’t make me.”

“What are you, five? You gonna poke your tongue at me?”

“You weren’t supposed to see this, Dean.”

“Well, too frickin’ bad.”

“If you two don’t mind,” Crowley interrupts from his armchair, sitting up tall.

“Actually, I do mind,” Dean barks, rounding on Crowley, but Cas grabs his arm.

“Dean, no—”

It feels like a slap. “Who is this guy, anyway?”

“I’m the owner of this house, for starters,” Crowley snaps. “And growing tired of this little soap opera you insist upon staging in my living room. Now, are you going to vacate my premises voluntarily? Or do I need to get the dogs?”

Dean has no idea what this Crowley character has that he doesn’t have, but the mental image of them together is suddenly right in his face. He feels a bit ill in the close, smokey air in the living room. 

But Cas is glaring at Crowley, now, not at him. “Stay out of this,” he growls, and there is no affection in his tone. Dean doesn’t know what to make of that, but a possessive little part of him purrs. 

Crowley leers broadly at both of them, settling back down in his throne. “Look, darling. You know I don’t care what you get up to on your own time. But your boyfriend is overstaying what little welcome he had.” 

“He was just leaving,” Cas says, and something about the way he says it is like a blade between Dean’s ribs. He doesn’t move his feet, frozen in place and staring Cas down until he breaks the gaze.

“Why?” Dean’s proud of how his voice barely cracks.

“It’ll be easier that way,” Cas says to the floor.

“Easier for who?”

Before Cas can answer, there’s a knock on the door. Meg, who’s been standing by puffing on her joint and looking like she wishes she had popcorn, opens it. “Hiya, sweetheart,” she says. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

A familiar head of blonde hair, flannel shirt, and ripped jeans appears in the doorway. Dean’s blood runs cold. Claire steps over the threshold, and Dean finds himself knocked backward by Cas’s solid weight barreling past him.

“What in God’s name are you doing here?” Cas demands, voice suddenly sharp, low, and dangerous.

“Cas? Jesus, is this where you’ve been?” Claire looks just as shocked and aghast as he is, and more than a little scared.

Before Dean can process, Cas has grabbed her by the arm and hauled her out of the house. She’s squirming and protesting, nearly tripping over her own feet as they navigate the porch steps, but it’s not getting her anywhere; Castiel’s grip is white-knuckled above her elbow. Dean follows right behind, Charlie on his heels.

“Finally,” Dean hears Crowley growl at their backs just before the door closes.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Cas demands. “Did Randy put you up to this? I thought we agreed—”

“You’re not my dad!” Claire rips her arm out of Cas’s grip. Dean gets ready to run interference in case she makes her way back to the house, but she just stares Cas down. “And if you’re so worried about me, why the fuck have you been here? I’ve been trying to call you!”

“There are other counselors—”

“My grandma’s in the hospital.” Dean hears her voice crack, sees the tears welling in her big blue eyes. “I need to get out of there, and you weren’t picking up the phone, and I need money fast. So, yeah, I went to Randy, and Randy sent me here.” Her chin juts out sharp at Castiel, a pointed punctuation.

Cas looks shaken, small and suddenly frail. “This isn’t the way, Claire. You don’t want to go down that road.”

She scoffs. “You’re one to talk. You’re always going on about how we’re supposed to learn from your mistakes, but you—you’re just a fucking hypocrite.”

The words slap across Castiel’s face, and he visibly reels. Lets go of Claire’s arm. Bows his head. “I’m sorry.” Dean barely hears the words through the shame.

In the stunned silence, Charlie moves past him, carefully, slowly. “Hey. Um. Claire, right?”

Claire turns, suspicious, shifting on her feet. “Who are you?”

“I’m Charlie. I’m a friend. And I—I think I might be able to help you.”

As Claire reluctantly follows Charlie off toward the sidewalk, Dean’s attention pulls back to Cas; he looks so shrunken and sallow. Dean is torn. Part of him wants to wrap his arms around Cas, but most of him is sick with hurt and worry and a white-hot hurricane of anger.

When Cas turns to trudge back into the house, he meets a solid wall of Dean instead. “Nope.”

Cas’s glare is mutinous for just a second before he crumbles. Sways forward, then recoils like he just realized how close he was to collapsing into Dean’s chest.

Dean almost breaks. Almost pulls him in.

Doesn’t.

Words and questions pile up behind his teeth, but none of them actually make it out.

Except one.

“Dude, where are your shoes?”

“Inside,” Cas grunts, bare toes curling in the dry, brown grass. “Somebody saw fit to haul me out of my comfortable haze without my consent before I could grab them.”

“I refuse to feel guilty about this,” Dean says, shoving his hands in his pockets and willing it to be true. “Besides, you hauled Claire outta there all on your own; that wasn’t my fault.”

Castiel sighs, squinting up at the sky. It’s a long, warm, golden afternoon, the kind that lasted a lifetime when you were sixteen and invincible. But Dean is twice that old, and so very aware of his own fragility.

“Cas—” he starts, then swallows. “What the hell, Cas?”

Cas blinks, long and slow, gaze lost. “Would you care to be more specific?”

“I dunno, where do you wanna start?”

That gaze turns on Dean, almost looking past him. “You’re angry.”

“You’re damn right I’m angry,” Dean starts, but whatever dam is about to break is shored up by Charlie hollering from the sidewalk.

“Hey, Dean? We need to go get ice cream. Just us girls. Can I borrow your keys?”

Dean scowls. “I thought I was the getaway driver?”

“You are,” she says. “Just not for the person I thought. And, well, more your car than you.” When Dean just stares at her for a second, she has the good grace to look chagrined. “Sorry?”

“How the hell am I supposed to get home?” It’s a token protest at best, but he has to make it.

It’s Cas who answers, his tone completely flat: “I have my van.”

Dean turns to stare at him, regardless of how it feels like he might crumble if he looks too long, but Cas isn’t making eye contact. 

“Great! Sounds like a plan.” Charlie’s voice is falsely bright, and with a distinct feeling that he’s being played, Dean digs out his keys and hands them over.

“You’re lucky I didn’t bring the good car,” he grumbles.

By the time Charlie and Claire are motoring off in his Prius, an itch has spread to cover his whole body, and Cas is just standing there, scuffing the gravel with one bare toe.

“Did I do something wrong?” The words fall from Dean’s mouth without his permission and land with a thud on the rocks between them.

Cas, if possible, hunches further in on himself. “Dean—”

“I’m serious. If it’s something I did, I want to know so I can never do it again. Because let me tell you, getting kicked to the curb like that sucks.”

“It’s nothing you did.” He sounds out of breath somehow. “Please believe that one thing: you did nothing wrong.” 

“Then—what the hell?”

Cas’s eyes slam closed; Dean sees his eyelashes against the silhouette of his nose. “What do you want me to say?” he asks.

“I dunno.” A million questions stir on his tongue, but they all boil down to the one inarticulate query he’s already repeated, what the hell? “Why Crowley?” he settles on.

“In what sense?”

“Why did you—you brought him back to Anna’s. Dammit, Cas, you know I can hear through that wall.”

“Yes, I do,” he murmurs, and it’s soft, like he can’t bother to force air out of his lungs.

“So that was deliberate?” He hadn’t wanted to think that Castiel was really that cruel.

“No,” Cas says. “I wasn’t thinking. I was—” he shakes his head. “That was stupid.”

“Well, we agree on one thing.”

“We never promised anything to each other,” Cas points out.

“No, but I thought—” He bites down. Can’t be that pathetic.

Cas finally turns to face him with a frowning stare that pins Dean’s brain to the back of his skull. “You thought what?” 

Dean stares back, hard, merciless, even when his eyes start to water. The words get stuck in the bear trap of his throat.

With the spread of his arms, Castiel indicates the whole of himself. “What do you see in me? Why on earth would you actually want to wake up next to a washed-up homeless hippie?”

It’s like swallowing a handful of ice. How the hell is he supposed to answer a question like that? It’s Cas. “Because—Because you—I—dammit.” 

Castiel drops his arms. “Very comforting. Stunningly accurate assessment of my character. Thank you, Mr. Smith.” 

With that, Castiel turns on his bare heel in the gravel and crunches away toward the relatively smoother pavement of the street. Dean follows, could easily outpace his careful tread, but he stays behind him anyway.

They’re halfway down the block when Dean spies a rust-spotted Volkswagen van that can’t be much younger than he is. The original color might have been orange, but it’s hard to tell, especially since large sections of it appear to have been spray-painted.

“This you?” he asks, pointing. 

Cas doesn’t answer. Just leads him straight toward the hulking bus. The door squeals when he hauls it open, a metallic skreee-thunk, and he climbs in. 

There’s not a lot of space, but it’s more than Dean expects. There are no seats other than the two in front, just a stretch of pilly, yet scrupulously vacuumed, carpet in an indeterminate shade of greige. Cas’s ubiquitous spicy incense can’t quite mask the funk of his laundry bag behind the driver’s seat or the swampy, ashy stink of bong water. The windows have curtains that probably came with the van when it was new, floral patterned and creamsicle colored. A futon mattress is nestled against the van’s long wall; the pillows are lumpy, but the sheets are fresh, and a butt-ugly crocheted afghan trails across the back. Wedged into the back of the van is a skulk of boxes, the top few standing open and showing signs of frequent rummaging. 

Cas moves around the van with ease, reaching into one of the boxes and pulling out a tattered deck of very large cards. Then he flops his ass down on the futon with a practiced grace that Dean totally fails to replicate. His hips haven’t had to bend this way in years. He tries to arrange himself cross-legged and ends up grateful for the extra room in his jeans. No wonder Cas is always wearing balloony pants.

Cas focuses on riffle-shuffling his cards, generous mouth pinched into a frown. Every now and then, he cuts the deck and looks at a card; Dean catches colorful pictures and names like the Ace of Wands, the Five of Cups, and the Wheel. With each card, Cas’s frown deepens.

Dean sits until the quiet between them stretches too thin to bear. “Can I ask you something?”

“You just did.”

“Very funny.” Dean licks his lips, circles his hands in vague uncertainty. “Why the disappearing act?”

“Drugs,” Castiel says bluntly, wielding the word like a weapon.

“That doesn’t explain why.”

“Does it need explaining?”

“Come on, Cas, I know you.”

“You think you do.”

“No, I do,” Dean presses, suddenly unerringly certain. “We’ve spent almost every day together for months and, yeah, you smoke a lotta weed, but that’s it. You’re not an addict. So—what?”

When Cas looks at him now, some of the hardness has cracked, and Dean spies just a peek of the man he’s—the man he knows—underneath. “You’re right,” he says. “It’s complicated.”

“I got all the time in the world, man.”

Cas sighs. “It’s a form of self-medication. I take retreats. When everything in here”—he taps his temple with one finger—“gets to be too much to handle on my own.”

Dean frowns. “Wouldn’t it be better to, I dunno. Get a prescription?” Cas opens his mouth, but then Dean waves his hand. “You know what, nevermind. That’s not the point.”

“Then what is the point?”

“Crowley,” Dean spits.

“What about him?”

Past the hard spike in his throat, Dean says, “Come on. You disappeared that morning, and then that night—you have to know how that looks.”

“Enlighten me.”

“It looks deliberate,” Dean says to the carpet. “It looks like what we—what we did—didn’t mean anything to you. Like, less than that.” He swallows; the carpet goes swimmy. “It looks like you just wanted me to hurt.”

Cas goes back to shuffling his cards, slowly, and doesn’t say anything for a long minute. Dean lets the air thicken between them. Serves him right.

“I’m sorry,” he says at long last, not looking at Dean. “Truly, I am. I’ve been told that I don’t always have the healthiest methods of handling my relationships.”

Dean scoffs. “Ya think? So, if that was you handling our relationship, then what the hell was the point?” He’s about five seconds from decorating the carpet with his insides, but he has to keep Cas talking. He needs answers. Real ones.

“My turn to ask you something,” Cas says, and his hard expression is back in place when he looks up. “What do you think of my humble abode?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Dean asks.

“Humor me.”

Dean glances around. Twitches his shoulders in a ‘what do you want me to say?’ shrug.

“It’s a small space,” Cas says, acid creeping into his tone. “Surely you don’t need that long to form an opinion.”

“It’s about what I expected. Didn’t count on the futon, though. I thought you’d have seats.”

“It’s a van. And it contains all my worldly possessions. This is where I live; this is how I live. All your assumptions, all your pithy little comments—you were exactly right. You judged me and found me wanting from the moment you met me.”

“Whoa, hey, hold on,” Dean interrupts with a finger pointed up. “That was before I knew you. And besides, I was never judging you, Cas, and I’m not judging you now. I was worried about you.”

“Worry is just judgement by a different name.”

“Okay, so, you know what? Prove me wrong. Show me how this is so fine and I don’t have to be worried about you.”

“It’s my life, Dean. What difference does it make to you?”

“Do you really need to ask that?”

Castiel sighs again, beleaguered and exhausted. “Dean—”

“Look, I care about you. That’s all.” Dean cuts him off, and he can feel the words shake loose. He’s been quaking to the foundations for hours, and finally, now, it’s too much. “I care about what happens to you. I care that you’re happy. I care whether you’re eating and sleeping right and I care that you’re out there helping kids figure out their shit, and if you don’t like it, sue me. The only thing you can do that will make me not want to be part of your life is to not want me there. Okay?” 

Out of breath, out of words, Dean crosses his arms over his chest and huffs like the child he apparently is today. He doesn’t dare look at Cas, so he stares at the curtains and the little square of blue sky between them. The flowers remind him of a sticker his mother had on her vanity mirror. He’d thought it was the prettiest thing in the world when he was five. He always did have questionable taste.

“That was a very convoluted sentence,” Cas says. Dean wonders if he’s dreaming or if his voice is a little strained.

“You know what I mean,” he says, and it sounds sulky even to his own ears.

A long pause, and then, “Yes, I do.”

A question sits on Dean’s tongue for far longer than he wants, salty and heavy, persisting through several swallows. “So… do you? Want me there?”

Castiel sighs, and Dean almost pukes on the afghan. “How can you still want anything to do with me after this?”

“I probably shouldn’t,” Dean says. “But. Y'know. Feelings are a bitch.”

Cas doesn’t say anything for a long moment, and when he does, the words come out slow and careful. “We’re incompatible, Dean.” His voice sounds like velvet brushed the wrong way. “I’m sorry.”

And there it is. A stone descends into Dean’s gut, and he can’t swallow after it. 

“Then what the fuck was this all about, huh? This whole summer, what—were you just leading me on?”

Cas shrugs and speaks to his knees. “You are very attractive. That was it, at first. Once I found out that you’d never—” He swallows, redirects. “You needed something I could provide.”

“So, what? You just wanted to deflower the virgin? It’s all just a game and now you’re done playing?”

A mirthless laugh, and Cas says, almost to himself, “It would be so much easier if I could say yes.” And then, “You’ve got what you needed from me; you can move on with your life.”

“Bullshit,” Dean snaps. “I needed you.”

Shaking his head again, Cas’s whole body trembles, but he doesn’t speak.

There’s not much more Dean can say.

“Y’know what? Fine. I guess I don’t.” And with that, he stands— 

Bang!

—And cracks his head on the ceiling of the van. “Ow, son of a fuck!” Pain lances from his skull, and he ends up toppling back down on the futon, hands on the crown of his head.

“Dean!” Cas’s voice comes from a lot closer than he’d thought it would.

When Dean opens his eyes, Cas is leaning over him, one hand hovering near his injured cranium, like he wants to check for blood but isn’t sure his touch would be welcome. His eyes are sharply, strikingly blue against the tangerine glow of sunlight on the curtains, and he looks—worried. This is the best look Dean’s gotten of him all day, the first time he’s really seen Cas there, his open and unguarded emotions all over his face. 

The pain in his skull fades as an entirely different ache consumes Dean’s chest.

“So you do give a shit about me,” he grumbles.

Cas freezes. His hand withdraws, but he doesn’t otherwise move.

“I never said I didn’t care about you,” Cas says, almost too quiet to hear.

Dean scoots himself up and back into a proper sitting position on the futon. The cards have spilled out of Cas’s lap, their navy-blue backs strewn with stars like a paper night sky. Only one card has landed face-up: two people sharing beverages out of ornate goblets, the Two of Cups displayed prominently across the bottom.

“Listen,” Dean says, staring hard at the card. “You’re right, we didn’t promise anything, and maybe it was naive of me to count on anything more. But it still, it fucking hurt. And. I still.”

“Don’t,” Cas interrupts, voice gone soft and small. His knees twitch up and he wraps both arms around them.

“It’s the truth. I got feelings for you. Is that so hard to believe?”

Cas’s forehead drops to his knees. “I don’t deserve it.”

“Fuck ‘deserve,’” Dean says.

Cas’s shoulders shake. Hard to tell why, with his face behind his knees.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. “Crowley was a cruel, stupid move, and you didn’t deserve that.”

“Why’d you do it, Cas? Really?”

Cas explodes out of his curled-in posture, face red. “Because maybe I have feelings for you too, and it scares the shit out of me,” he almost yells.

Dean knows he should be pissed all over again, but all he can do is smile about the balloon in his chest. “Glad to hear it,” he says. “Well. Not the scared part.”

Cas shakes his head. “It doesn’t change anything. The only reason you gave me the time of day is because you met me in my sister’s house.”

“I mean, maybe. But that’s a me problem, not a you problem.”

Cas squints at him. “How do you figure that one?”

“You’re the one who pointed out that I’m a judgey asshole.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You basically did. But I’m damn glad that I did meet you, and in the long run, I don’t see what any of this has to do with us being compatible.”

“Then you are naive and short-sighted.”

“I prefer to think of myself as a hopeless romantic,” Dean says, letting a smile crack across his cheeks.

Wonder of wonders, Cas smiles back. Just a tiny thing, expertly hidden, but Dean knows where to look to catch a glimpse.

Another stretch of silence, and then Cas says, “I can’t just be your experiment.”

“What, like, you thought I was just trying being gay on for size? I’ve been alone for years, Cas. I’m not looking to go back to that anytime soon. Not if I have someone like you I could hold onto.”

Cas is shaking his head, a laugh cracking into something somber around his eyes. “‘Someone like me.’ Right.” Dean’s already gearing up a defense of Castiel’s character, but Cas keeps talking. “Guys like me don’t get to keep guys like you. You slum it with us for a few weeks, then it’s back to Respectsville, population ‘not Castiel.’”

“That’s crap. And I’m not gonna do that to you.”

“You deserve better,” Cas says, then scrubs his hands over his face. They’re trembling finely. “You’re a good man; you shouldn’t have to deal with—all this. Me and my issues.”

Dean picks at a hangnail, then bends so that he can cross Cas’s line of sight with his own. “You think you can let me decide that for myself?”

Cas doesn’t answer. But he does maintain eye contact when Dean leans back to a normal sitting posture.

“So, let me get this straight,” Dean starts, slow. “You think that just because it might not work out, we just shouldn’t even try?”

“Why expend effort on a venture that seems doomed to fail?”

Dean snorts. “You really know how to make a guy feel special, Cas.”

“I’m not trying to make you feel special; I’m being realistic.”

“You’re being a pessimist. And you’re turning your worst fear into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Can’t fail if you never try? Okay, well, you can’t succeed that way either.”

Castiel’s eyes narrow. “Balance of probabilities.”

“The hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means—”

They’re interrupted by the buzzing of Dean’s phone in his pocket. Cursing, Dean digs it out. “It’s Charlie,” he says, and checks the text. “She’s taking Claire home. Says they’ve got a plan, whatever that means.”

“Tell her to make sure she’s going to Southeast 119th and Ankeny.”

Dean taps it out on his phone. “Done.”

Cas nods, face grim but relieved. “She’s probably worlds better for Claire than I am right now.”

Dean tucks his phone back in his pocket. The silence drifts in around them again, but it’s like fresh snow against tree trunks, now, rather than the eye of an oppressive storm. Cas’s gaze is far away, pensive.

“Claire’s right,” Cas says. “I am a hypocrite. Asking them to learn from my mistakes when I haven’t learned from them myself. And I can’t be there for them if I’m not there. So. This is the last time. You don’t have to worry about this happening again.”

“The disappearing act?”

“These retreats. In spite of appearances, I am aware that it’s a stopgap measure, at best.”

“Okay,” Dean says. “That’s good, probably.” Cas really does have an extreme cowlick situation going on at the back of his head. Even after everything, Dean’s fingers itch to comb through the whorls. “Look, it’s your life, man. I just want you to make sure that you’re doing what works for you, and that it is actually working.”

Cas stares. Blinks slowly. Then slumps to the side, perilously close to Dean’s shoulder. “What works for me,” he says, not a question.

“Yeah.”

“What if I haven’t figured that out yet?”

“Then that makes two of us,” Dean says. “I might have money, but it’s not like my job means anything, so if that’s all I have, then—” He spreads his hands. “I dunno.” Dean rubs his palms together, a nervous friction. “Put that in your pipe and smoke it.”

Cas snorts. “Now, that is the best idea I’ve heard all day.”

~~

God dammit, Dean Smith.

This is not how this was supposed to go. 

In an ideal world, Castiel was just going to slip quietly out of Dean’s life without any opportunities to get further entangled. Worst case, since he just had to show up at Crowley’s—and Castiel will have words with Charlie about that, oh yes he will—he should have seen the state of Castiel’s life, gotten spooked, and taken the high road out of town. Cas would make his excuses to Anna and then just… never go back to that duplex. Never see Dean again.

Instead, he’d swooped in with those big, soft eyes and shoulders that filled out his T-shirt far too well and this persistent, earnest goodness that makes Castiel feel no better than a cockroach. And now he’s just sitting there, more or less at ease in Castiel’s den of iniquity. Right there on his bed, in the spot where he eats and sleeps and fucks, like he belongs— 

Don’t think it, Castiel.

The damn tarot cards aren’t helping either. Traitors.

And he really desperately needs coffee.

Instead, he reaches into the top-most box on his pile for his tall, intricate glass bong—he may live in a van, but he can still enjoy some of the finer things in life—taking solace in the ritual of grinding, loading, lighting, inhaling. He blows smoke rings in the still, humid air of his van.

“I wasn’t always such a square, you know,” Dean says.

“You mentioned your university business ventures.”

“Yeah, but I mean, before that. I didn’t come from money. When I was a kid, we were in and out of crappy apartments, on the road a lot while my dad looked for work. Just me and him and my mom. So.” He rubs his palms together. “I’m not as far from here as you think I am. I just got lucky.”

“We have intriguingly opposite trajectories,” Cas says, tracing up and down the decorative glasswork on his bong with his thumb. “I did come from money. You know my sister. She’s the only one of my family who talks to me anymore. The rest are all waspy assholes who still think I should have gone into hedge fund management like my brothers and my father before me.”

“I cannot picture that.”

“It was nearly a reality.”

“For what it’s worth, I don’t think I’d like you as much.”

Cas’s lips are dry enough that they crack when he smiles. “That’s comforting.” 

“You were gonna say something earlier. About balance of probabilities?”

“Mm.” Cas takes another bong hit to stall. This one is too big for smoke rings, and he ends up in a rare coughing fit. Dean pats him on the back, ineffectual, but heavy and pleasing. “I mean, it’s happened before,” he rasps.

“What, you got dumped?”

“More like obliterated. Ostracized. Excommunicated.”

“Okay, drama queen.”

Castiel smiles, because the cannabis is making him. “We had everything going for us. High school sweethearts. Married within a month of graduation—”

“You were married?”

Cas spreads his hands and then folds his arms, settling in. “My family wasn’t thrilled with the social work, but we were well-positioned enough, and as the youngest son and already safely married, I had somewhat more leeway. We had a bright future ahead of us.”

“And then?”

Cas sighs. “Work. Too many children I couldn’t help, too many families caught up in red tape, too many of my coworkers too jaded and bitter to even try. I saw them all broken down by a system intended to lift people up, and it—I couldn’t be a part of it anymore.” His voice breaks, but he keeps going, pushing past the memories, the names and faces behind the case numbers and manila folders, made hazy by time and intentional erasure. “You have no idea, Dean, the horrible things people will do to children. And the ones who needed me the most wound up being the ones I couldn’t save.” Cas folds himself over the old ache in his belly, fingers itching for his lighter. “First, I became a workaholic. Then I started drinking. It was never any one thing, just a never-ending series of failures. Even the success stories—I couldn’t change what had already been done.”

“That’s true of anything,” Dean says, that particular tone of someone grasping at any spare straw.

“In a last-ditch effort to keep me on some kind of straight and narrow path, Amelia suggested I go back to school. I thought, if I couldn’t help through the social work system, perhaps I could help individuals.”

“Hence the counseling.”

Cas nods. “But by that time, I was too broken. The drinking was a problem, but then it progressed to painkiller abuse. Occasional amphetamines when I was still trying to stay on top of my classes. And then it was just whatever I could find. By the time I flunked out of my master’s program, Amelia was already more than halfway out the door.”

“I’m sorry,” Dean says. It’s an automatic response people tend to have, and Cas shrugs it off.

“It was my fault, and it was her decision. But. After she left, I spiraled. The next few years are… blurry.”

There’s a silence, and then. “You're not broken, Cas.” 

Cas scoffs. 

“I mean it,” Dean presses on. “You’re human, and you care, and you put all that in a pressure cooker with some seriously messed up shit. That’ll drive anyone to drink.” 

“Not anyone,” Cas says. “There are plenty of social workers who function just fine.” 

“Yeah, but that doesn’t make you any lesser for tapping out.” 

Cas doesn’t have much of a response to that. He flicks an idle spark off his lighter without igniting flame, then takes another hit. Weed smoke curls around his brain, a soft cushion to the outside world, leaving him clear and calm inside it. 

“What about now?” Dean asks. 

“What about now?”

“I mean. You—you got out of it, right? Mostly?”

Castiel nods. “With the exception of my occasional retreats—which are an entirely different variety of drugs, by the way—the only habits I retain are cannabis and promiscuous sex.”

Dean’s brows twitch into a little W. “What kinda drugs? Now, I mean.”

Castiel flicks his lighter some more. “You really want to know?”

Dean just shrugs. “Curious.”

“Psilocybin, mostly.”

He watches Dean search his own memory banks; he comes up surprisingly quick. “Mushrooms?”

“And LSD, but never at the same time. There was some MDMA on offer this time, but—” he shakes his head. “Not in the mood. Earlier in the week, there was some opium and ketamine, but I try to end my retreats with hallucinogens.”

Dean nods. “What about this morning?”

“Nothing.”

“For real? You seemed kinda”—Dean wobbles a hand side to side—“when we found you.

Cas snorts. “Don’t worry. The only thing hindering my rationality now is sleep deprivation. I haven’t even had coffee.”

Dean has the audacity to laugh, then, and he must never find out how much Castiel has missed that sound, how much he wants to lose himself in it.

“You, uh.” He licks his lips. “You wanna go get some? Coffee, I mean.”

It’s risky. It’s foolish. It has all the markers of a broken heart waiting to happen, but Castiel is weak, and Dean is beautiful. 

“I thought you were trying to kick the habit.” 

“Yeah, well. Turns out I'm not very good at that.” 

Cas huffs his faint amusement, then rolls a question around and around in his mouth before letting it out. “Are you asking me out on a date, Mr. Smith?”

And there’s that smile, those perfect white teeth and the sparkle in those glass-green eyes. Castiel knows with impenetrable, terrible certainty he will follow them straight into the River Styx.

“Yeah,” Dean says. “I guess I am.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DRUG DISCLAIMER: Castiel describes (in vague terms) the use of several substances from across the drug map to cope with stress, depression, and exposure to trauma. All actual drug use happens off screen (except the weed). While some of his self-medication is based _v e r y l o o s e l y_ on my own knowledge and experiences, his methods are not what you might call medically rigorous. Generally speaking, pharmaceuticals are best administered by a professional. Please remember that he is a fictional character.
> 
> To be concluded on Sunday. Thanks for sticking with this story, y'all. <3


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, folks. At long last.

They have less than a week before Anna’s return, and Castiel feels it keenly. The fact that Dean does too is made especially clear when he actually takes time off work.

“You don’t have to do that—” Castiel starts to protest when Dean shows up with lattes after having supposedly left for work on Monday morning.

“I know,” he says, resolute, pushing over the threshold even with a blush in his cheeks. “But it’s been years since I took a vacation, and, well. I’ve earned it. They’ll live without me for a few days.”

And so, for the rest of the week, it’s as though there isn’t even a wall between Dean’s condo and Anna’s; they are barely apart. They talk more than Cas can remember ever talking to anyone in his life, even Amelia. They both sleep in Dean’s bed, but Dean wears tank tops and pajama pants and Cas wears soft T-shirts and boxers. (And maybe one time he wears one of Dean’s work out tanks, just to watch him stumble over his sentences and struggle to keep his hands to himself.)

Cas wonders if he’ll ever stop waiting for the other shoe to drop, and then realizes he’s counting on “ever.” 

Touch comes back slowly, and kisses slower than that. They start small, and every brush of skin feels like a first, no matter that they’ve been dancing in each other’s circles for weeks. Cas might be an idiot with his own relationships, but he does know that all the talking is probably doing them good, and it’s that  _ good  _ he’s feeling when when Dean’s fingers shyly brush the back of his hand and he feels them there for hours, or when he turns around in the kitchen to find Dean standing close enough that he can count the freckles across his nose and suddenly can’t breathe.

But the strangest part is how it doesn’t make him want to run.

It’s madness, certainly, but it’s madness like paragliding rather than just flat-out jumping off a cliff. He feels like maybe he can ride it.

Like maybe it’s exhilarating instead of terrifying.

He just has to believe in parachutes.

The metaphor makes him snort in the middle of the  _ Salt and Burn _ boys interrogating a demon. Dean eyes him, suspicious.

“What’s so funny?”

Cas wiggles his toes deeper under Dean’s thigh and says, “Nothing.”

Dean gives him a look. They’ve been trying not to answer questions with “nothing.”

It takes Cas a second to answer; he reaches for his phone to pause Netflix. The silence beckons. “I was thinking about flying,” he says. “As it compares to falling.”

He clearly doesn’t get it—but then he does, and he’s going pink across the cheeks. “Oh,” he says.

“Don’t worry. I have a parachute.” Cas adds a broad, ridiculous wink, and gets what he wants when Dean’s shy little smile flares into a laugh.

“I bet you do,” Dean says, and his hand drops to Cas’s shin. Cas holds perfectly still so as not to startle him. 

They watch the next two episodes like that, with Dean’s thumb and fingers tracing patterns on the top and side of his foot, around the bones of his ankle, and Castiel wonders about heretofore undiscovered erogenous zones. 

Wanting someone, but not taking. Waiting. It’s new. Whatever is going to happen between them is fragile, but he can feel it burrowing deep.

Just a few more days, he promises himself. He’s still not sure what will happen when convenient proximity is no longer a factor. 

He’s hopeful, though.

It’s a strange feeling.

~~

“Admit it,” Dean taunts. “You’re gonna miss ‘em.”

Castiel glares up at him from where he’s pinned on the couch. Ellie is a furry dictator who has declared that it’s naptime, and that her rightful place is squarely in the bowl of Castiel’s crossed legs. His knees have been stiff and asleep for twenty minutes.

“If you get me the nail trimmers, she will run. I guarantee it.”

“Or you could just stand up,” Dean says, still with a shit-eating grin. “You’re bigger than she is.”

Cas scowls. He can get up. He really can. But every time he makes a vague motion toward unfolding his legs, the purring beast lets out a contented snore and twitches her ears, or stretches out her legs and neck before settling into a tighter curl against his thigh.

“Okay, fine. I’m trapped.”

“I can help you up.”

“Yes, please.”

“If”—Dean holds up one finger—“you admit that you’re gonna miss the cats.”

If looks could burn, Dean would surely be on fire. “This is extortion.”

Dean shrugs, flaunting his freedom from feline tormentors.

To make matters worse, Thomas pops his little black-and-white head over the couch cushion and directs a loud, questioning mew straight at Castiel.

“And what do you want?” Cas asks.

In answer, Thomas hops up on the couch cushion and settles himself next to Cas’s knee, a perfect sphinx with his tail curled daintily around his feet. Clearly wanting something, he taps his paw to Cas’s leg and meows again.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Cas grumbles, and lifts a hand to scritch Thomas’s ears. That’s apparently what he was after because he nudges his head into the touch the moment Cas’s hand gets close and his rumbling purr joins Ellie’s.

Dean, for his part, looks like he’s about to burst, a hand over his mouth keeping down a gale of giggles, surely. “Man. Where’s my phone? This is too damn precious. Don’t move, any of you,” he warns as he wanders off toward wherever he might have left his blackmail collection device.

Across the living room, Castiel spies Roscoe lurking by the stairs, regarding the scene like a distant patrician, aloof from the comings and goings of commoners. But he meets Cas’s gaze for a moment before closing his eyes, slowly, one and then the other.

“Okay, fine, I admit it,” Cas says to the little trio, once he’s sure that Dean’s out of earshot. “You’ll let me visit, won’t you?”

Thomas’s response is to start grooming his thumb. It seems a decent compromise.

~~

They’re shoulder to shoulder in Dean’s kitchen washing up from lunch when there’s a soft knock at the door. Dean answers, and Cas finds himself frozen in the act of drying a plate as Claire comes wandering down the hall behind him.

“Didn’t expect to see you here,” Dean’s saying.

“Charlie told me where Cas was staying. Hope that’s okay?”

“Fine with me,” Dean says. From behind Claire’s back, he aims a baffled shrug at Cas, who returns it with a minute shake of his head. 

Claire studiously avoids Cas’s attempts at eye contact, instead peering around the living room with her fingers tucked into her pockets. “What’s with all the gym stuff?”

“Dean’s recovering from a terminal case of responsibility,” Castiel says, putting the dishrag down and coming around the island. He aches to bring Claire into a hug, but he has no idea if that would be a welcome gesture. Besides, there are physical-contact rules, and for good reason. “You’re not supposed to know where I live.”

Claire shrugs. “Yeah, but you don’t live here, right? It’s just temporary?”

Dean moves past her, past Castiel, toward the kitchen to take up Cas’s abandoned rag. He doesn’t make eye contact, and Cas doesn’t try. “Correct. I’m house-sitting.”

For a moment, there’s nothing to say. Their last meeting’s weight lingers between them. Claire fiddles with her fingernails and shifts from foot to foot; Castiel wishes he had pockets to put his hands into. Dean makes a conspicuous amount of noise in the kitchen, scrubbing pans and banging cupboards closed. 

“Shall we take a walk?” Cas asks. Whatever Claire came here to say will be easier if they’re moving.

She agrees quickly, almost fleeing the hall. Dean shoots him a thumbs-up.

The heat of the day lingers in the pavement, but the breeze suggests the turn of autumn on their heels. The roadside strip is thick with Queen Anne’s lace and dandelions, the air dusty and sweet-smelling like dry grass.

Claire still doesn’t say anything, but she does seem more comfortable as they amble down the suburban road. She lets the fingers of one hand dance along the tips of a white picket fence, up and down the peaks and valleys.

“How’s your grandmother?” Castiel asks.

“Doing okay, for now. But, I mean…” Claire trails off.

Cas waits her out.

“The doctors keep talking about long-term care,” she says at last. “Pretty sure they mean putting her in a home.”

“Do you think that would be best?”

Claire just shrugs.

“She’s still going to need her family around,” Cas says. “Somebody who really cares for her, not just people with medical training.”

“I know,” Claire says, and Cas is surprised with how directly she looks at him, blue eyes clear. “I’m not going anywhere, don’t worry.”

Cas’s eyebrows try to lift off his face. “That’s quite a change in attitude,” he says, carefully keeping the surprise and relief out of his voice.

She nods, plucking one of the lacey white flowers from the roadside. It’s broader than her palm. “Charlie’s gonna help me with the emancipation paperwork,” she says, spinning the flower by its stem. “And, like. She knows some stuff.”

“What stuff?”

“Computer stuff. She said she’d teach me.”

That’s not nearly as reassuring as it should be. Castiel makes a mental note to call Charlie and ask exactly what kind of help she’s been offering. Hopefully, it’s just about developing marketable skills.

“What about you?” Claire asks.

“Hm?”

“You gonna be okay?”

It’s a strange bit of role reversal, but he supposes the question is fair. He mulls over potential answers for a few minutes—various shades of truth and covering his ass—before letting out a sigh. “I’m sorry you saw that,” he says.

Claire shrugs. “It’s your life.”

“Maybe. But I need to hold myself to a higher standard if I want to be any kind of role model to you, or anybody else.”

“Well, nobody’s perfect,” Claire says, and bumps her shoulder into Castiel with a goofy grin. “Besides. I mean, if you can still be figuring out this whole ‘life’ thing at however-the-fuck-old you are—”

“I’ll have you know I am not that old.”

“—then, I dunno.” She scuffs her heel on the pavement, kicks at a loose stone. “Maybe I don’t have to hurry it up so much.”

Cas stops walking for a moment to stare at her. Such narrow shoulders to carry such a burden, such wisdom blossoming underneath.

She’ll do alright.

“Mistakes can happen at any age,” he says, catching up to her steps. “And so can learning from them. The right people around you will be there to call you on them and still love you after.” Green eyes swim in his vision, the taste of forgiveness humbling and bittersweet. “I thought I had life figured out, once. I thought I was on the right path. And then, when it turned out I wasn’t—well. It wasn’t pretty. But the older I get, the more I realize that there is no one right path; it can look very different for different people, and it rarely looks like you think it will. It can meander into some very strange places and still be right. So long as you’re not hurting yourself or others, no path is really the wrong one, either.”

“I thought you were supposed to tell me to listen to my elders. Stay on the straight and narrow, y’know?” Claire says.

Cas snorts, shakes his head. “It’s not about any ‘straight and narrow.’ It’s about doing right by yourself and by the people you love.” They amble a few more steps, and then, “I think we’ve proven to each other that wisdom is not a linear journey. There’s nothing separating childhood from adulthood but time; we’re all just very old children trying to do the best we can for the world.”

“Wow,” Claire says. “Deep.”

Cas shoots her a sideways glare, but she’s smiling at him, genuine and real in spite of her snark.

“C’mere.”

There might be rules about hugs, but the handbook doesn’t say anything about noogies.

~~

On Thursday, they go for a drive. They take Castiel’s van at Dean’s insistence ( _ “You don’t have to prove how not-judgemental you are.” “I know, but your futon’s more comfy than my back seat.” _ ), and they end up on a rocky outcropping overlooking the beach, of all places, with the great blue expanse of the ocean stretching out in front of them. They park at the viewpoint and lounge together on the futon with the big bay door open, enjoying the sparkle and sigh of the waves and the cool, salt-smelling breeze.

“You know, a guy could get used to this,” Dean says, sipping something cold and sweet from a plastic jug they pass back and forth.

“There are perks to having a mobile abode,” Castiel says, leaning sideways on the futon. It’s not the most comfortable position, but he has his feet in Dean’s lap, where his fingers trace nonsense patterns from his ankles to his knees, not quite up to the frayed edge of his cutoff denim shorts. Occasionally, his thumb dips down to massage the arch, which feels heavenly, and Castiel is very aware of the breadth of denim-clad thighs under his calves. If he pressed his leg just a little to the side—well. There’s a lot a man can do without the use of his hands.

“You ever think of giving it up? Doing the whole actual-house thing again?”

It’s deliberately light, carefully phrased. “Sometimes,” he answers, equally careful. “It would be nice to have guaranteed privacy while taking a shit.”

That gets Dean snorting into laughter. Cas is grinning as he raises his pipe to his lips. The glass glitters and the weed is fresh, but before he can get it lit properly—damn wind—Dean speaks again.

“Hey, uh. Can I have a shotgun?”

Castiel pauses. “Do you really want cannabis? Or do you just want an excuse to kiss me?”

The flush that stains Dean’s neck and ears is instantaneous. “Well,” he says, the quirk of his lips all mischief, and the glint in his eye having nothing to do with the sun. “Maybe.”

Slowly, Cas sets his pipe aside, still unlit. Moves his leg. His heel bumps the fly of Dean’s jeans as he moves it off his lap to tuck around behind his waist, putting him very effectively between Cas’s legs.

“Come here,” he murmurs.

Dean scrambles a little, trying to find the best way to position himself for kissing. Eventually, he lays himself right over the top of Castiel, pushing him prone on the futon with his head on a lumpy pillow, and Cas’s blood swoops through his pelvis at the position. Dean is propped up on his elbows, just a breath away from Cas’s lips; Cas lets his arms drape around his muscular shoulders, tracing his own designs on Dean’s back, up his neck to card through his hair.

At first, Dean seems content to lay there, and Cas takes advantage of the moment to memorize Dean’s features. The glass-green glow of his eyes and the fan of lashes that frame them. The spray of freckles, darker now than when they met, brought out of hiding by the summer sun. The luscious pink of his lips.

Dean edges into a kiss slowly, cautiously, like he thinks he’ll get caught. Cas, meanwhile, surges into that first tender touch, like a man with nothing to lose. 

Then Dean’s nuzzling down into his neck, and for a long moment, they’re just squeezing and breathing together. The tension melts out of Dean’s body, and Cas’s heart slows to a dull thud as he pets the soft buzz of hair at the base of Dean’s skull.

“This time last week, I didn’t know if I’d see you again. I was trying to be okay with that,” Cas says softly. “It didn’t work, for the record.”

Dean shakes his head, buried as he is in Cas’s neck, then lifts his head and searches for Cas’s lips again, half-blind. Brief stops are made at the bolt of his jaw, the corner of his chin, and Cas’s eyes slip closed. It almost hurts. He was not made for tenderness.

And yet, with Dean, he can’t seem to be otherwise.

When Dean finds his lips again, Cas’s arms and legs go tight around his body, and Dean gives this adorable huff of surprise before angling his kiss deeper. They spend long moments there, exploring the shapes of each other’s mouths, the way they move, the little sounds the other makes. The unique flavor of their mouths together. Cas opens his eyes just a slit to watch the way Dean’s eyelids flutter and scrunch.

Then Dean shifts, sliding his hips, and all at once, Cas’s thighs clamp down. He hadn’t realized how hard he’d gotten until he feels Dean’s answering flesh brush against him through their jeans. He breaks the kiss on a profane gasp, but Dean captures him back, pushing their cocks together, trapped in denim but lined up perfectly.

“Shit,” Dean pants. “Should we shut the door?”

“Why?” Cas asks. “Who’s going to see, the seagulls?”

Dean snorts, and they compromise on closing the door but leaving all the windows wide open so that they can still feel the ocean air. While Dean takes care of that, Cas takes a moment to divest himself of his shirt and scoot lower on the futon. When Dean looks down at him, he  _ really _ looks, his gaze roving twice over Cas’s chest before locking on the obvious distension of his jeans. Cas lets his own fingertips trail down his belly, just luxuriating in the feeling and having so captured Dean’s attention.

Dean watches that hand, then knee-walks closer again, slotting himself back between Cas’s thighs. He looks awestruck. His hands hover over Cas’s skin, like he barely knows how to make contact—but then he picks up Cas’s hand, cradles it in his own, brings it up to his lips to kiss each knuckle and the space where each finger begins, and Castiel’s heart tries to explode. Cas swears to God, if Dean makes him start crying—

Then Dean draws Cas’s thumb between his perfect lips, teasing it with a tentative tongue, and the world rights itself again with a bolt of lust to his groin. His thighs tighten down on Dean’s hips again. “Dean—”

With a wink that’s far too flirty for Castiel’s foolish heart, Dean drops Cas’s hand to strip off his T-shirt, fluffing his hair into delightful disarray. Only then does he bend down to kiss Cas again, hard, eager, and Cas takes what’s on offer with his hands all over Dean’s skin. 

Most of Castiel’s lovers—to use the term loosely—have not cared enough to bother finding out what makes him tick. They don’t linger over his skin for the simple joy of touching, they just hit the most likely targets of pleasure and move on.

Dean, though. Dean proceeds to conduct the most thorough examination of Castiel’s erogenous zones that he’s ever experienced. Dean discovers sensitive spots that Cas hardly knew he had. Like just behind his ear, where Dean’s lips are soft and his tongue is softer, and the goosebumps run in waves over Castiel’s scalp and down his spine. Or the rise of his ribs just above his belly, which get teeth and fingertips that send heat straight to Castiel’s groin. Dean discovers just the right amount of pressure for tugging on his hair, finds the ticklish spots over each hip bone, scoops his hands under Cas’s waist to bring him up closer to his lips. Castiel feels like his skin is on fire from the inside out before Dean has even touched his jeans.

If this is what Dean is like on pure instinct and curiosity, Cas thinks, he is going to be a force to be reckoned with once he figures out his moves.

God, what Castiel wouldn’t give to see that. 

“Cas?” Dean asks from where he’s mouthing at the jut of Cas’s hip, just over the top of his waistband.

“Yes,” Cas sighs, like it will always be his answer.

“Can I—?” He’s tugging at Cas’s cutoffs, and it’s about damn time.

“Yes,” Cas says again, and then they’re both going for his fly, the hard jut of his cock making for difficult maneuvering. Eventually, Cas bats his hands away to each tackle their own zippers, and in moments they’re both shimmying themselves naked. 

Dean is back in his arms in a flash, kissing him deeply, without a single barrier left between them. When their cocks meet this time, Cas can feel Dean’s breath catch in his chest, and Cas groans, holds on tight with his legs, squeezing them together. He ruts up into Dean’s body with his own. There’s a slick slide of precome from one or the other of them—or both—and Dean keens like a dying man at the sensation.

The kiss breaks. Dean’s hips roll and his muscles flex, and Cas is struck again.

“You are so fucking beautiful,” he whispers, cupping Dean’s strong jaw in both hands.

Dean’s eyes flutter open; the corner of his lips quirk. “You’re one to talk,” he says. Then he shuts his eyes, a little furrow of pleasure creasing his brow, and he dips his head to lose himself in Castiel’s skin again.

“Hey, Cas?” he sighs against Cas’s collarbone.

“Hmm?”

“I, uh.”

“Spit it out, Dean.”

“Can I suck you off?”

Cas can  _ feel _ the swell of his dick at that. “ _ Please _ . You’d better hurry.”

Then Dean’s scrambling down, eager and bright-eyed, and Cas is once again lost.

It’s a struggle not to come the moment Dean’s lips slide sweet and smooth over Cas’s slick head. It’s not an expert blowjob, and Cas does offer some pointers in a low voice—“Use your tongue—yes, like that,  _ yes _ —” or “let your hand take care of what you can’t—oh god, just like that”—but he’s enthusiastic, and it’s  _ Dean _ , gorgeous, wonderful Dean, who Cas never thought he would have like this again, who moans so sweetly when Cas can’t help but rock his hips up between his lips. Just the tiniest bit.

Dean pops off, looking dazed with his lips and cheeks bright pink. “I—I really want you to fuck my face,” he stammers in a throaty, fucked-out voice that makes Cas’s blood burn.

And maybe it’s rude. Maybe it’s uncouth. Maybe he should be more gentle with his barely-not-virgin. But Castiel is only human, and Dean had the admirable boldness to ask for this. Such behavior deserves to be rewarded. 

So he takes Dean’s head in his hands, and Dean only just has time to open his mouth before Cas’s cock is in it. He stops before he gags him—by sheer strength of will and not actually wanting to hurt him—and growls, “Be careful what you wish for.” 

And then he lets himself  _ fuck. _

And Dean—Dean just hangs on for the ride. He makes little cut-off gulping sounds as Cas’s cock fills him and empties him, gives up on trying any kind of technique and just lets his jaw go slack, slick and loose for Castiel. And the cherry on this unexpectedly delicious sundae is the hands that curl under Cas’s ass like he’s trying to draw him even closer, even deeper.

Cas has half a second to warn him before he’s coming, but Dean just holds on tighter, trying valiantly to swallow that last inch.

Every part of Castiel goes bright and sparkling as he comes—his thighs, his hands, his cock, his heart, twisting and wringing and coming out empty, clean. When he comes back to himself, Dean is panting open-mouthed against his groin, his lips a wet, abused shade of red, eyes glazed and hungry.

“Sorry,” Cas pants, slightly ashamed. “I could have been kinder about that.”

But Dean is already shaking his head with a giddy, dirty laugh and a drunken grin. “Don’t be. I’ve always wanted to do that.”

Cas relaxes. “Convenient, because I love to do it,” he says. But on the tail of relaxation comes curiosity, and he tilts his head to regard Dean where he’s lying between his legs. “Come here,” he says.

It’s an awkward tangle of limbs before he has Dean straddling his hips. When he pulls him down for a kiss, Cas can taste himself on Dean’s tongue, and he swallows a sweet little sigh when he takes Dean in hand.

“What else have you always wanted?” Castiel asks, buzzing against his still-damp mouth.

“Huh?”

Another long tug, Dean’s flesh sticky-hot and stone-hard in Castiel’s palm. “You’ve had a lifetime to dream, Dean. What do you want?”

It’s a long time before Dean really answers other than whuffs of breath through his nose and bitten lips. “Uh. I. I kind of.”

“Yes?”

An almost-laugh as Castiel thumbs his slick slit. “I’m trying. Hard to talk,” he says.

“Do you want me to stop?”

“Fuck, no.”

“Then tell me.”

“I—I want to try, uh. Panties.”

Castiel’s hand does stop, then, to the tune of a high wine from Dean. When he starts again, it’s faster. “Panties?”

Dean nods against his collar. 

“Do you want to wear them? Or see me in them?”

“Both,” Dean says first, and then, softer: “Wear them.”

“Little silky, lacy things?” Another nod. “Pretty scraps of satin around your cock while I fuck you?” A more frantic nod, gasps against his bare chest. “God. You would be so perfect, Dean. You have such a beautiful ass; I can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner. It’s absolutely made to be covered in lace.” Dean groans, then, deep and rough, and works his hips into Cas’s grip. “Or have a little strip of satin riding right down between your cheeks. I’d kiss your cock through the silk and stick out my tongue to taste the wet patch at the head—” Dean fucks his fist, cock swelling into his grip, he’s so close,  _ so close _ . 

But he stills his hand at the base, pressing his palm down just right on Dean’s balls. “What else?”

The sudden cessation of movement has Dean squirming, trying his damnedest to get friction from Cas’s hand, his belly, anything. “C’mon, Cas—”

“Tell me.” Lying here on the futon with Dean writhing over him, Cas can at least pretend that he has all the time in the world.

“I—I don’t—everything, I just—”

“Everything?” he teases.

Then Dean’s head pops up, his eyes open wide as he stares down at Cas. “I just want you,” he says. “Anything, so long as it’s you.”

_ Oh. _ Castiel’s mouth drops open, but there are no words.

He moves his hand again.

Dean moves with him, driving his cock through Castiel’s fist. He follows Dean’s lead, now, stroking in time with his thrusts, tightening and quickening as he gets closer and closer—

With a broken, breathless whine, Dean comes. He comes in hot, messy spurts all over Cas’s chest and belly and hand. It goes on for long, aching moments of pleasure, and Castiel holds him through it with a gentling hand on his cock and an arm around his shoulder, holding him close.

When he finally slumps down, boneless, breathing heavily, Castiel is grateful for his weight. It might be all that’s keeping him from flying apart at the seams.

He loves this man. He knows he does.

“Thank you,” he murmurs. 

“For what?” Dean’s voice comes out muffled in his collar.

“For this. This summer, the last few weeks.” A tight swallow, and then: “For giving me another chance. I know I don’t—”

“If you say deserve it, I’m gonna tickle you.”

Cas lets out a laugh, a quiet sigh of a thing pressed into the warmth of Dean’s hair. “Regardless. Lesser men would have washed their hands of me.”

“Yeah, well.” Dean presses up just enough to look Cas in the eye, sleepy and muzzy and content. “Hey. Actually, I—hang on a sec.” Dean disentangles himself from Castiel, their sweaty skin peeling apart and leaving cool behind. 

Still stark naked, Dean roots around in the pile of discarded clothing for his jeans, digging in his pocket. Cas grabs a tissue from the box by the head of the futon—always prepared, after all—and cleans up the worst of the mess on his chest. 

Once Dean has whatever-it-is clenched in his hand, he pauses. “Maybe I should give this to you later.”

That snags the entirety of Castiel’s attention. “Give me what?”

“I was going to give it to you earlier, but, well. Got distracted.” Dean scratches at the sweat at the back of his neck.

Cas rolls his eyes, a dramatic affair and he knows it. “Well, you can’t leave me hanging like this  _ now _ .”

“I know. I just don’t want you to think—I mean. I’ve had this for a while, I just—it’s not because of—” He gestures vaguely at the futon. “I would have given it to you anyways, even if we hadn’t—”

“Dean. You’re overthinking.”

“Yeah, probably. I just—”

“And rambling.”

A clench of his jaw, another trill of Cas’s pulse. “Right.”

Joining Cas on the futon again but dipping his chin to avoid his gaze, Dean finally holds out a small, flat something. It gleams silver, reflects the blue of the sky out the window.

Cas takes it.

It’s a key.

“Now, this isn’t—I’m not asking you to move in with me or anything. I just want you to know that you’re always welcome. Okay? You can come and go as you please. I just like having you around, and that’s. Uh. That’s that, I guess.”

A house key, all sharp on all its edges and relatively untarnished, still warm from resting against Dean’s thigh.

“It’s to my house,” Dean says.

“Yes, I assumed as much,” Cas says, breathless, turning the key this way and that in his fingers.

Dean wants him around.

Dean trusts him.

Cas is aware that he has been quiet for far too long, staring at the little scrap of metal in his hand, but he can’t come up with words. His brain has just stalled.

Dean shifts. “Is this okay?” he asks.

Cas has Dean in his arms before he can even think about it, crawls right into his lap to sink down into his welcoming embrace. Whether or not he deserves him, he has him, the whole warm, solid press of his naked skin, the tight cling of his arms once he thinks to hug him back. The shape of the key presses into the skin of Castiel’s palm, clutched so tight, it might draw blood. It will certainly leave an imprint.

“More than okay,” Cas murmurs. “Thank you.”

Dean lets out a soul-deep sigh, the kind that lets them tuck more tightly into one another, every part of them that is soft and vulnerable, every hard edge blunted and carved to fit. They hold each other for a long, long time, just breathing. Just existing. 

“Come on,” Dean says eventually, pulling back with a glowing grin. “Let’s get down to that beach, get some sand in our toes.”

How could he possibly resist?

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you like, there's a [rebloggable tumblr post](https://jemariel.tumblr.com/post/627263306617536512/and-hes-oh-so-good-jemariel-supernatural) here, and you can follow me if you like. ALSO if you want to come hang out with a bunch of other destiel nerds, you can join the [Profound Bond Discord Server!](https://discord.gg/profoundbond) It's my favorite corner of the internet. ^_^
> 
> Kudos make my day, comments make my whole week.


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